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LIFE OF HER MAJESTY 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 




HER MAJESTY, QUEEN VICTORIA. 



LIFE OF HER MAJESTY 



Queen Victoria 



BY 



MILLICENT GARRETT FAWCETT. 



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o^^oi'^^ ^■■-■ 



BOSTON: 
ROBERTS BROTHERS. 

1895. 






Copyright, 1895, 
By Roberts Brothers. 



All rights reserved. 



5Eittbttstt2 Press : 
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A. 



PEEFACE. 



^^ ,,ould have been impossible, within the limits of this 
little book, to narrate, even in barest outline, all the 
events of the Queen's long life and reign. In attempting 
to deal with so large a subject in so short a space, I have 
therefore thought it best to dwell on what may be con- 
sidered the formative influences on the Queen's character 
in her early life, and in later years to refer only to po- 
litical and personal events, in so far as they illustrate 
her character and her conception of her political func- 
tions. Even with this limitation, I am fully aware how 
far short I have come of being able to produce a worthy 
Tecord of a noble life. I will only add that I begun this 
little book with a feeling towards Her Majesty of sin- 
cere veneration and gratitude, and that this feeling has 
been deepened by studying more closely than I had done 
before the ideal place of the Crown in the English Con- 
stitution, as a power above party, and the important 
part the Queen has taken now for nearly sixty years in 
making this ideal a reality. It is not too much to say 
that, by her sagacity and persistent devotion to duty, 
she has created modern constitutionalism, and more than 
any other single person has made England and the Eng- 
lish monarchy what they now are. 

A list of the books referred to will be found after the 
chronological table. Among them it is almost unneces- 



vi PREFACE. 

sary to say that I am especially indebted to " The Early 
Years of the Prince Consort," by General Grey, and to 
"The Life of the Prince Consort," by Sir Theodore 
Martin. I also desire to express my respectful thanks 
to H. E. H. Princess Christian, for help very graciously 
and kindly given in the selection of a portrait for this 
little volume. 

MILLICENT GARRETT FAWCETT. 

April, 1895. 



CONTENTS. 



Chapter Page 

I. The Queen's Immediate Predecessors . . 9 

JI. Childhood and Education 28 

III. Accession to the Throne 41 

IV. Love and Politics 56 

V. Rocks Ahead 71 

VI. The Prince 79 

VII. The Queen and Peel 94 

VIII. Stockmar 104 

IX. The Nursery 119 

^'X. Home Life. — Osborne and Balmoral . . 132 

. XI. Forty-Three to Forty-Eight 144 

XII. Palmerston 156 

XIII. Peace and War 173 

XIV. A Nation of Shopkeepers 192 

XV. The Valley of the Shadow of Death . . 201 

XVI. Domestic Life after 1861 215 

XVII. The Warp and Woof of Home and Politics 227 

XVIII. The Queen and the Empire 244 

Chronological Table of Events 257 

Books of Reference 261 



yiCTORIA. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE queen's immediate PREDECESSORS. 

Every now and then, on the birth of a male heir to 
any of the great historic kingdoms of Europe, the 
newspapers and the makers of public speeches break 
forth into rejoicing and thanksgiving that the country 
in question is secured from all the perils and evils 
supposed to be associated with the reign of a female 
Sovereign. It is of little importance, perhaps, that 
this attitude of mind conveys but a poor compliment 
to our Queen and other living Queens and Queen 
Regents ; but it is not a little curious that the popular 
opinion to which these articles and speeches give 
expression, namely, that the chances are that any man 
will make a better Sovereign than any woman, is 
wholly contrary to experience ; it is hardly going too 
far to say that in every country in which the succes- 
sion to the Crown has been open to women, some of 
the greatest, most capable, and most patriotic Sov- 
ereigns have been queens. The names of Isabella of 
Spain, of Maria Theresa of Austria, will rise in this 
connection to every mind ; and, little as she is to be 
admired as a woman, Catherine II. of Russia showed 
that she thoroughly understood the art of reigning. 
Her vices would have excited little remark had she 
been a king instead of a queen. It is an unconscious 
tribute to the higher standard of conduct queens have 



10 VICTORIA. 

taught the world to expect from them, that while the 
historic muse stands aghast at the private life of the 
Kussian Empress, she is only very mildly scandalized 
by a Charles V. or a Henry IV., thinking, with much 
justice, that their great qualities as rulers serve to 
cover their multitude of sins as private individuals. 
The brief which history could produce on behalf of 
Queens, as successful rulers, can be argued also from 
the negative side. The Salic law did not, to say the 
least, save the French monarchy from ruin. How far 
the overthrow of that monarchy was due to a combi- 
nation of incompetence and depravity in various pro- 
portions in the descendants of the Capets from the 
Regent Orleans onwards towards the Revolution, is a 
question which must be decided by others. Carlyle's 
view of the cause of the Revolution was that it was 
due to " every scoundrel that had lived, and, quack- 
like, pretended to be doing, and had only been eating 
and misdoing, in all provinces of life, as shoeblack 
or as sovereign lord, each in his degree, from the 
time of Charlemagne and earlier." Women no doubt 
produced their share of quacks and charlatans in the 
humble ranks of this long procession of misdoers, but 
not as sovereigns, because, with the superior logic of 
the Gallic mind, the French people not only believed 
the accession of a woman to the throne to be a misfor- 
tune, but guarded themselves against the calamity by 
the Salic law. The fact affords a fresh proof that 
logic is a poor thing to be ruled by, because of the 
liability, which cannot be eliminated from human 
affairs, of making a mistake in the premises. The 
English plan, though less logical, is more practically 
successful. We speak and write as if a nation could 
not suffer a greater misfortune than to have a woman 
at the head of the State ; but we do nothing to bar the 
female succession, with the result that out of our five 



THE QUEEN'S IMMEDIATE PREDECESSORS. 11 

Queens Regnant we have had three of eminent dis- 
tinction as compared with any other Sovereign; and 
of these three, one ranks with the very greatest of the 
statesmen who deserve to be remembered as the 
Makers of England. 

Something more can be claimed than that the Salic 
law did not prevent the overthrow of the French 
monarchy. It is probable that the female succession 
to the throne did save the English monarchy in 1837. 
Failing the Queen, the next heir would have been the 
Duke of Cumberland , and from all the records of the 
time, it does not suffice to say that he was unpopular, 
he was simply hated, — and with justice. He appears 
to have conceived it to be his function in Hanover " to 
cut the wings of the democracy;" if he had succeeded 
to the English throne and adopted the same policy 
here, he would have brought the whole fabric of the 
monarchy about his ears. He was equally without 
private and public virtues. The Duke of Wellington 
once asked George lY. why the Duke of Cumberland 
was so unpopular. The King replied, " Because there 
never was a father well with his son, or husband with 
his wife, or lover with his mistress, or friend with 
his friend, that he did not try to make mischief 
between them." 

The political power which has in various countries 
devolved on queens calls to mind one thing that 
ought to be remembered in discussions upon the 
hereditary principle in government. Within its own 
prescribed limitations it applies the democratic 
maxim, la carriers ouverte aux talents^ much more 
completely than any nominally democratic form of 
government, and thus has repeatedly given, in our 
own history, a chance to an able woman to prove that 
in statesmanship, courage, sense of responsibility, and 
devotion to duty, she is capable of ruling in such 



12 VICTORIA. 

a way as to strengthen her empire and throne by carry- 
ing the devoted affection of all classes of her subjects. 

Twice in the history of England have extraordinary 
efforts been made to avert the supposed misfortune of 
a female heir to the throne; and twice has the 
" divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how 
we will, " decreed that these efforts should be in vain, 
and the dreaded national misfortune has turned out 
to be a great national blessing. Mr. Froude tells us 
that five out of Henry VIII. 's six marriages were con- 
tracted in consequence of his patriotic desire to secure 
the succession to the throne in the male line. But 
when the feeble flame of Edward VI. 's life was ex- 
tinguished, four women stood next in the succes- 
sion, and England acquired at a most critical moment 
of her history, in the person of Elizabeth, perhaps the 
greatest Sovereign who has ever occupied the throne 
of this country. 

The second occasion was after the death of the 
Princess Charlotte in 1817. George HI., with his 
fifteen children, had not then a single heir in the 
second generation. It would not be correct to say 
that the Royal Dukes were then married by Act of 
Parliament, no Act of Parliament was necessary; 
but political pressure was brought on them to marry, 
and Parliament granted them extra allowances of 
sums varying from £10,000 to <£6,000 a year, and in 
May and June, 1818, the marriages took place of the 
Duke of Cambridge to the Princess Augusta of Hesse, 
of the Duke of Clarence (afterwards William lY.) to 
Princess Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen, and of the 
Duke of Kent to Princess Victoria, daughter of the 
Duke of Saxe-Coburg, widow of the Prince of Leiningen, 
and sister of Prince Leopold, the husband of Princess 
Charlotte. The marriage of the Duke of Kent is the 
only one of these that immediately concerns us. As 



THE QUEEN'S IMMEDIATE PREDECESSORS. 13 

the fourth son of George III., his children would, 
under ordinary circumstances, have had but a remote 
prospect of succeeding to the throne. But of his elder 
brothers, the Prince Regent had, in consequence of 
the death of Princess Charlotte, become childless, the 
Duke of York was also childless, the Duke of Clarence, 
whose marriage was contracted on the same day as 
that of the Duke of Kent, 13th June, 1818, took pre- 
cedence of him as an elder brother, and if he had had 
legitimate heirs they would have succeeded to the 
throne. The Princess (afterwards Queen) Adelaide 
was not childless. She bore two children, but they 
died in their infancy ; and thus the only child of the 
Duke and Duchess of Kent, the Princess Alexandrina 
Victoria, became heiress-presumptive of the English 
throne. The Duke of Kent took the strongest interest 
in his baby girl's chances of the succession. Before 
the birth of the child he urged upon his wife, who 
was then resident at Amorbach in Bavaria, that the 
possible future King or Queen of England ought to 
be born on English soil, and then she consented to 
remove to Kensington; it is said he was so keenly 
anxious for her safety that he drove her carriage the 
whole of the land journey between Amorbach and 
Kensington with his own hands. At the present day 
we should perhaps say that the chances of safety lay with 
the professional rather than with the amateur coach- 
man; but the Duke proved his efficiency in handling 
the reins, and brought his wife in safety to London, 
where, on the 24th May, 1819, the baby was born who 
is now Queen of England. It should be noted that 
the Duchess was attended in her confinement by a 
woman, following the custom of her own country in 
this matter, and that the same accoucheuse^ Madam 
Charlotte Siebold, attended a few months later upon 
the Duchess of Coburg when she gave birth to the 



14 VICTORIA, 

child who in after years became Prince Consort. 
There are several little anecdotes which illustrate the 
Duke of Kent's appreciation of the important place 
his little girl was born to fill. He wanted the baby 
to be called Elizabeth, because it was the name of the 
greatest of England's Queens, and therefore a popular 
name with the English people ; there were, however, 
godfathers. Royal and Imperial, who overruled him 
as to the naming of the child. These were the 
Emperor of Russia (Alexander I.) and the Prince 
Regent, and it was therefore proposed to call the 
baby, Alexandrina Georgiana. But George, Prince 
Regent, objected to his name standing second to any 
other, however distinguished. His brother, on the 
other hand, insisted that Alexandrina should be the 
first of the baby's names. In consequence of this 
dispute the little Princess was so fortunate as to 
escape bearing the name of Georgiana at all; when 
she was handed to the Archbishop at the font the 
Prince Regent only gave the name of Alexandrina. 
The baby's father, however, intervened, and requested 
that another name might be added, with the result 
that, as a kind of afterthought, her mother's name 
was, as it were, thrown in, and the little Princess 
was christened Alexandrina Victoria. It was in this 
way that the name Victoria, then almost unknown 
in England, was given to the baby, and has since 
become familiar in our mouths as household words. 
The Duke declined to allow the congratulations that 
were showered on him at the birth of his child to be 
tempered by regrets that the daughter was not a son. 
In reply to a letter conceived in this vein from his 
chaplain, Dr. Prince, the Duke wrote at the same 
time that "I assure you how truly sensible I am of 
the kind and flattering intentions of those who are 
prompted to express a degree of disappointment from 



THE QUEEN'S IMMEDIATE PREDECESSORS. 15 

the circumstance of the child not proving to be a son 
instead of a daughter. I feel it due to myself to 
declare that such sentiments are not in unison with 
my own, for I am decidedly of opinion that the decrees 
of Providence are at all times wisest and best." As 
this was addressed to a clergyman and a Doctor of 
Divinity, it may be inferred that Her Majesty's father 
was not without a sense of humor. Another story of 
the Duke is that, playing with his baby when she was 
a few months old, he held her high in his arms and 
said, "Look at her well, for she will be the Queen of 
England. " It must be remembered, however, that at 
this time there was no certainty that the children of 
the Duke and Duchess of Clarence would not survive 
the perils of infancy; moreover, if the Duke of Kent 
had lived to have a son, the boy would have become 
the heir in preference to his sister. The Duke's 
strongly marked feeling of fatherly pride and affection 
is almost the only trait in his character by which we 
are able at this distance of time to conjure him up out 
of the mists of bygone years. ^ This feeling was soon 
to receive a melancholy illustration. The Duke and 
Duchess, with their baby daughter, removed from 
Kensington to Sidmouth to spend the winter of 
1819-20. Returning home on a January day, with 
boots wet with snow, the Duke caught a severe chill 
from playing with his baby, instead of changing his 
boots. 2 The illness developed into acute pneumonia, 
of which he died in January, 1820, leaving his wife a 
stranger in a strange land, hardly able to speak the 

1 The Duke of Kent was chiefly known in the army for his extreme 
insistence in military etiquette, discipline, dress, and equipments. He 
was, however, the first to abandon flogging, and to establish a regimental 
school. — Dictionary of National Biography. 

2 In reminiscences contributed by the King of the Belgians, as an 
appendix to " Early Years of the Prince Consort," it is stated that the 
Duke's fatal cold was caught when visiting Salisbury Cathedral. 



16 VICTORIA, 

English language, sole guardian of England's future 
Queen. The Duchess of Kent must have been a 
woman of considerable strength of character* and 
power of will. She was in an extremely lonely and 
difficult position. Pecuniarily, her chief legacy from 
her husband consisted of his debts, which the allow- 
ance made then by Parliament was not sufficiently 
ample to enable her to pay. 

Her brother, then Prince Leopold, widower of Prin- 
cess Charlotte, and afterwards King of the Bel- 
gians, supplemented her income from his own purse. 
The Duchess and her children (she had two by her 
first marriage) were frequently his guests at Clare- 
mont and elsewhere, and the Queen speaks of 
these visits as the happiest periods of her childhood. 
After a few years the death of the children of the 
Duke and Duchess of Clarence made it practically 
certain that the Princess Victoria would become 
Queen. The Court of George IV. was not one which 
the Duchess of Kent could frequent with any satisfac- 
tion; she was on bad terms with him, and he often 
threatened to take her child away from her. His 
character made him quite capable of doing this ; he 
was equally heartless and despotic. Matters were 
not greatly improved as to personal relations between 
the Sovereign and herself when William IV. became 
King; the Princess Victoria did not even attend his 
coronation. There was a strong feeling of antago- 
nism between the Duchess of Kent and William IV., 
which occasionally broke out into very unseemly mani- 
festations, especially on the King's side. His was 
not a character which could claim respect, and still 
less evoke enthusiasm. As Duke of Clarence, he had 
lived for more than twenty years with Mrs. Jordan, 
the actress, by whom he had ten sons and daughters. 
His affection for them showed the best side of his 



THE QUEEN'S IMMEDIATE PREDECESSORS. 17 

character. He did not disown them; they bore the 
name of Fitz Clarence, and as soon as he was able he 
provided liberally for them. Greville says that his 
sons, with one exception, repaid his kindness with 
insolence and ingratitude. His affection for them did 
not prevent his desertion of their mother. He sepa- 
rated from her without any apparent cause, and 
endeavored to bring about a marriage between himself 
and a half-crazy woman of large fortune. The Prince 
Regent is said to have been the main plot of this 
scheme, which was never carried out. During the 
earlier part of his connection with Mrs. Jordan, the 
Duke of Clarence made her an allowance of £1,000 a 
year. At the suggestion of George III. he is said to 
have proposed by letter to Mrs. Jordan to reduce this 
sum to £500. Her reply was to send him the bottom 
part of a play-bill, on which were these words, " No 
money returned after the rising of the curtain." 
When he was a young man on active service in the 
navy and in command of a ship, he had twice absented 
himself from foreign stations without leave, and the 
Admiralty were at their wits' end to know how to 
deal with him. 

The death of the Princess Charlotte in 1817, and 
later the death of the Duke of York, gave political 
importance to the Duke of Clarence's existence, and 
he was one of the batch of Royal Dukes who married, 
as we have seen, in 1818, not without unseemly hag- 
gling with the House of Commons as to the additional 
allowance to be voted for his support. The £10,000 
a year proposed by the Government was cut down to 
£6,000 by a vote of 193 to 184. Lord Castlereagh 
then rose and said that " Since the House had thought 
proper to refuse the larger sum to the Duke of Clarence, 
he believed he might say that the negotiation for the 
marriage might be considered at an end ; " and on the 

2 



18 VICTORIA. 

next day his Lordship announced to the House that 
" the Duke declined availing himself of the inadequate 
sum which had been voted to him." However, as 
the only practical reply to this was a vote by the 
House granting £6,000 a year to the Duke of Cam- 
bridge, and declining any grant at all for the unpopu- 
lar Duke of Cumberland, the Dake of Clarence appears 
to have thought better of his refusal of the grant, and 
the marriage accordingly took place. But there can 
be no surprise, under the circumstances, that such a 
union and the character it revealed awakened no 
popular interest. It should be said, however, that 
when he became King it was generally remarked that 
his elevation improved him. He became, Greville 
says, "most composed and rational, if not more digni- 
fied in his behavior." People began to like him, if 
not for his virtues, at any rate on account of the con- 
trast he presented to his predecessor. His best quali- 
ties were frankness and honesty, and he also had the 
real and rather rare generosity of not bearing a grudge 
against those who had baffled or defeated him. Thus 
the Duke of Wellington had, when Prime Minister, 
removed the Duke of Clarence from the office of Lord 
High Admiral; but though exceedingly angry at the 
time, he never bore any grudge against the Duke of 
Wellington, or wreaked vengeance upon him in any 
way when he had the power to do so. On the con- 
trary, when he became King he gave the Duke his 
fullest and most cordial confidence, retained him as 
Prime Minister, and took an early opportunity of 
publicly showing him honor by dining at Apsley 
House. It is the more pleasant to recall this instance 
of magnanimity on the part of William IV. because 
the annals of the time are full to overflowing of stories 
to the discredit of nep^rly all the sons of George III. 
The character of George IV. is well known. His 



THE QUEEN'S IMMEDIATE PREDECESSORS. 19 

quarrels with his wife and attempt to pass an Act of 
Divorce against her are notorious. In ghastly con- 
trast to the pageantry of his coronation, in which it 
was said c£ 240, 000 were spent, those who were present 
speak of the thrill of horror which ran through the 
assembly when Queen Caroline was heard knocking at 
the door of the Abbey for the admittance which was 
refused her. "There was sudden silence and conster- 
nation; it was like the handwriting on the wall." 
George lY. was almost equally contemptible in every 
relation of life. His Ministers could with difficulty 
induce him to give attention to necessary business. 
" Indolent, cowardly, selfish, unfeeling dog " are the 
words by which he is described by the clerk of his 
Council. He delighted in keeping those who had 
business to transact with him waiting for hours while 
he was chatting about horses, or betting, or any trivial 
matter. Greville, after many years of close knowledge 
of George IV., says of him: "The littleness of his 
character prevents his displaying the dangerous faults 
that belong to great minds ; but with vices and weak- 
nesses of the lowest and most contemptible order it 
would be difficult to find a disposition more abundantly 
furnished. " It is probably not too much to say that 
no one loved him living, or mourned him dead. Of 
his funeral Greville says in his cynical way: "The 
attendance was not very numerous, and when they 
had all got together in St. George's Hall, a gayer 
company I never beheld. . . . Merry were all, as 
merry as grigs." The King's brothers were not a 
very great improvement on the King. The Royal 
Dukes seemed to vie with each other in unseemly and 
indecorous behavior. On one occasion, in July, 1829, 
they attacked each other violently in the House of 
Lords, that is, " Clarence and Sussex attacked Cum- 
berland, and he them very vehetnently, and they used 



20 VICTORIA. 

towards each other language which nobody else could 
have ventured to employ; so it was a very droll 
scene." With such brothers-in-law the position of 
the Duchess of Kent must have been one of great 
difficulty and loneliness, and she was, consequently, 
thrown, more perhaps than she would otherwise have 
been, to rely for advice and companionship on her 
own brother, Prince Leopold. This Prince and his 
confidential secretary and friend, Stockmar, after- 
wards Baron Stockmar, were the trusted counsellors 
of the Duchess of Kent with regard to the education 
of Princess Victoria and her preparation for the diffi- 
cult and responsible position she was afterwards to 
occupy. The quarrels and disputes that constantly 
arose between the Duchess of Kent and William IV. 
may have been attributable to faults on both sides; 
but the most innocent and indeed laudable actions of 
the Duchess, with regard to her daughter's training, 
seem to have been made the excuse for all kinds of 
complaint and acrimony on the part of the King. 
For instance, the Duchess felt that it was proper that 
her daughter, in view of the position she would here- 
after occupy, should see as much as possible of the 
places of interest and importance in the kingdom she 
would be destined in time to reign over. Accordingly, 
she took the young Princess about to the chief manu- 
facturing centres, as well as to places of historic 
interest, and localities where the rural beauty of 
England was to be seen in its greatest perfection. In 
this way she visited Birmingham, Worcester, Cov- 
entry, Shrewsbury, Chester, Lichfield, and Oxford, as 
well as Malvern, Brighton, Tunbridge Wells, Kenil- 
worth, Powis Castle, Wynnstay, Anglesey, and the 
Isle of Wight. It appears, however, that these appar- 
ently praiseworthy proceedings gave great offence at 
Court. The Duchess was supposed to seek more 



THE QUEEN'S IMMEDIATE PREDECESSORS. 21 

attention than her position justified her in demand- 
ing. A Council was summoned at Windsor on one 
occasion (in 1833) for the sole purpose of checking 
the manifestations of loyalty which the appearance of 
the Duchess and her daughter provoked. The King 
was devoured by spleen on hearing that salutes had 
been fired at the Isle of Wight in honor of these pro- 
gresses of the heiress-presumptive and her mother. 
After absurd negotiations on the subject between the 
King and his sister-in-law, when neither had the 
good grace to give way, the fleet was commanded, by 
Order in Council, not to salute the Royal Standard 
unless the King or Queen was on board. On another 
occasion, offence seems to have been taken by the 
King where none was intended, because an address, 
received by the Duchess in 1835 at Burghley, alluded 
to her daughter as " destined to mount the throne of 
these realms. " It was an additional offence that Sir 
John Conroy, the Duchess's controller of the house- 
hold, "handed the answer, just as the Prime Minister 
does to the King." With every action, even on the 
part of others, thus misinterpreted, it was no wonder 
that the Duchess could have no cordial feelings 
towards her husband's family. George TV. openly 
showed his dislike for her, the Duke of Cumberland 
never lost an opportunity of aggravating the unfriend- 
liness of their relations. When William lY. suc- 
ceeded, the Duchess of Kent wrote to the Duke of 
Wellington, as Prime Minister, to request that she 
might be treated as a Dowager Princess of Wales, 
with an income suitable for herself and her daughter, 
for whom she also asked recognition as heiress to the 
throne. These requests met with a positive refusal, 
at which the Duchess expressed considerable vexation. 
Afterwards, when a Regency Bill was brought forward 
to provide for the event of the death of the King while 



22 VICTORIA. 

the Princess Victoria was still a minor, although the 
right thing was done, and the Duchess was named 
Regent, the old feeling of hostility was not removed 
between herself and the King and his brothers, and 
during nearly the whole of William IV. 's seven years' 
reign there were constant bickerings and disputes 
between Windsor and Kensington. Matters were 
made worse by William's love of making speeches, in 
which he set forth, with more vigor than dignity, his 
grievances, or what he considered such. Greville 
says he had a passion for speechifying, and had a 
considerable facility in expressing himself, but that 
what he said was generally useless or improper. An 
instance in point is to be found in the " Life of Arch- 
bishop Tait," who wrote in his diary, December 4th, 
1856, that Dr. Langley told him that when he did 
homage to William IV. on his first appointment as 
Bishop, no sooner had he risen from his knees than 
the King suddenly addressed him in a loud voice 
thus: "Bishop of Ripon, I charge you, as you shall 
answer before Almighty God, that you never by word 

or deed give encouragement to those d d Whigs, 

who would upset the Church of England." Even 
when proposing the Princess Victoria's health and 
speaking kindly of her, he could not resist the public 
announcement that he had not seen so much of her 
as he could have wished (Aug., 1836). On another 
occasion he loudly and publicly expressed to the 
Duchess his strong disapprobation of her having 
appropriated apartments at Kensington Palace beyond 
those which had been assigned to her, and spoke of 
what she had done as " an unwarrantable liberty. " A 
still worse outbreak shortly followed. At his birth- 
day banquet in 1836, in the presence of a hundred 
people, with the Duchess of Kent sitting next to him 
and the Princess Victoria opposite, he expressed with 



THE QUEEN'S IMMEDIATE PREDECESSORS. 23 

more vigor than delicacy the hope that he might live 
nine months longer, so that the Princess might attain 
her majority, and the regency of the Duchess never 
come into operation. He referred to the Duchess as 
"a person now near me who is surrounded by evil 
advisers, and who is herself incompetent to act with 
propriety in the station in which she would be placed." 
A great deal more in the same style followed ; " an 
awful philippic," Greville calls it, 'uttered with a 
loud voice and excited manner." The King's ani- 
mosity against the Duchess was extended to, and may 
perhaps have been provoked by, her brother. He had 
given offence by calling on Queen Caroline after the 
conclusion of the evidence against her in the House of 
Lords. He appears himself to have thought the action 
required an excuse, and says, " But how abandon 
entirely the mother of Princess Charlotte, who, though 
she knew her mother tvell, loved her very much ? " 
George lY. was furious, and never forgave his son-in- 
law. William IV. shared his brother's sentiments in 
regard to Leopold, and invariably treated him with 
coldness, and sometimes with rudeness that amounted 
to brutality. After he had become King of the 
Belgians, Leopold visited William IV. at Windsor, 
and during dinner made an innocent request for 
water. The King asked, " What 's that you are 
drinking, sir?" "Water, sir." "God d— it!" 
rejoined the other King, " why don't you drink wine ? 
I never allow any one to drink water at my table." 
The King of the Belgians must have felt like a man 
living among wild beasts, and it is not surprising to 
read that he did not sleep at Windsor that night, but 
went away in the evening. There was not a subject 
on which they were agreed. William IV. was a Tory 
of the Tories; Prince Leopold was a Whig. King 
William's chief political interest was the preservation 



24 VICTORIA. 

of the slave trade ; Prince Leopold was deeply inter- 
ested in its abolition. The same antagonism between 
them ran through all subjects, great and small. 

These anecdotes of the coarseness and brutality of 
the Queen's immediate predecessors have been recalled 
for the purpose of illustrating the extreme difficulty 
of the position in which the Duchess of Kent found 
herself from the time of her husband's death to that 
of her daughter's accession. It also serves to explain 
an expression used in after years by the Queen in 
reference to her choice of the name of Leopold for her 
youngest son, where she says, " It is the name which 
is dearest to me after Albert, one which recalls the 
almost only happy days of my sad childhood." But 
if the Princess Victoria was unfortunate in some of 
her uncles, her uncle Leopold went far to redress the 
balance. At one time the prospect before him, as 
husband of Princess Charlotte, had been identical 
with the position afterwards occupied by Prince 
Albert. He had become a naturalized Englishman, 
and he had given great thought and study to English 
Constitutional history, and particularly to the duties 
and responsibilities of a Constitutional monarch. He 
had strong personal ambition, disciplined by ability 
and conscientiousness. In 1817 the death of his wife 
dashed the cup of ambition from his lips. A con- 
temporary letter speaks of him as Adam " turned out of 
Paradise without his Eve." From the important posi- 
tion of husband of the Heiress Apparent he sunk in 
one day to that of a subordinate member of the Royal 
Family, necessarily, as we have seen, out of sym- 
pathy with them and aloof from thein. " Seekest 
thou great things for thyself ? Seek them not, " was 
the lesson of 1817 to him. With great power of 
personal abnegation, his disappointment did not im- 
bitter him, his ambition did not turn sour. He trans- 



THE QUEEN'S IMMEDIATE PREDECESSORS. 25 

ferred it and all his plans and all his interest in 
English constitutionalism to a little niece and nephew 
who were born respectively on the 24th of May and 
26th of August, 1819. The little Victoria at Ken- 
sington and the little Albert at Coburg were destined 
by their uncle Leopold almost from their birth to play 
the part that would have been filled by the Princess 
Charlotte and himself but for her early death. He 
had, of course, no absolute power to bring this mar- 
riage about, but he earnestly desired it, and prepared 
the way for it by every means at his command. He 
won, as he deserved to win, the Princess Victoria's 
most ardent affection. She has told us herself how 
she " adored " her uncle. He took his mother, the 
Duchess Dowager of Coburg, a very able woman, into 
his confidence. She wholly shared his views and 
hopes. From the time he was three years old Prince 
Albert was accustomed to the idea that when he was 
old enough he was to marry his cousin, Princess 
Victoria of England. The first mention of Prince 
Albert as a husband was made to the Queen by her 
uncle Leopold. The education of both children was 
conducted with this end in view. This was no doubt 
a chief bone of contention between Prince Leopold 
and his sister the Duchess of Kent on the one hand, 
and the King and his party on the other. For William 
IV. highly disapproved of the proposed union, and 
did everything in his power to stop it, proposing in 
succession no fewer than five other marriages for the 
young Princess. It throws a light too on his resent- 
ment at the degree to which the Princess Victoria was 
withdrawn from his Court, so that hardly any influence 
could reach her antagonistic to that of her uncle 
Leopold. William IV. 's explosions of rage against 
the Duchess of Kent are illustrative of this ; they are 
those of a stupid man, nominally in a position of 



26 VICTORIA, 

authority, but baffled and outwitted, and consequently 
furious. It was well for the Princess Victoria and 
for England too that he was not the predominant 
influence in her education; but it is not difficult to 
understand his wrath. The game of cross purposes 
was constantly going on, and the King was constantly 
being worsted. The Duchess of Kent selected as her 
daughter's tutor the Rev. George Davys. The King 
objected that the education of the heiress-presumptive 
to the throne should be under the care of some dis- 
tinguished prelate. The Duchess acquiesced, and, 
while retaining the services of Dr. Davys, intimated 
that there would be no objection on her part to his 
receiving the highest ecclesiastical preferment. A 
very extensive knowledge of human nature is not 
needed to know that this sort of thing is to the last 
degree irritating, nor that the fact of the Duchess and 
her brother being generally in the right, and the 
King generally in the wrong, was not soothing to the 
latter. ^ 

In this too stormy atmosphere the heiress of Eng- 
land was reared. Her naturally happy disposition 
and healthy physical constitution carried her through 
with less disadvantage than other less happily endowed 
natures would have sustained. Among other relatives 
who were uniformly kind and considerate to the 
young Princess special mention should be made of the 
Duke of York, whom she loved like a second father. 
His death, in 1827, was her first real sorrow as a child. 
Queen Adelaide also was uniformly kind and loving 
to her niece. Her own two baby girls had died in 
their infancy, and she transferred a good deal of 
motherly tenderness to Princess Victoria. A meaner 

1 It should be remarked that whatever the faults and shortcomings 
of William IV. may have been, the Queen herself never refers to him 
but in terms of affection and gratitude. 



THE QUEEN'S IMMEDIATE PREDECESSORS. 27 

nature would have resented the place of her own child 
being filled by another; but Queen Adelaide showed 
none of this littleness, and welcomed her niece with 
cordiality to her rightful place beside the throne. 
When the second of Queen Adelaide's own little girls 
died, she wrote to the Duchess of Kent, " My children 
are dead, but yours lives, and she is mine, too ! " 
The simple words give the note of a truly noble nature. 
In 1831, when King William prorogued his first 
Parliament, Queen Adelaide and Princess Victoria 
watched from the windows of the Palace the progress 
of the Royal procession. "The people cheered the 
Queen lustily, but, forgetting herself, that gracious 
lady took the young Princess Victoria by the hand, 
led her to the front of the balcony, and introduced 
her to the happy and loyal multitude. " ^ On several 
other occasions Queen Adelaide showed a noble, 
queenly, and motherly spirit towards the young 
Princess. In 1837 and onwards, Queen Victoria was 
able, by a number of little nameless acts of kindness 
and of love, to cheer and soothe the declining years of 
the Queen Dowager. 

1 G. Barnett Smith, " Life of Her Majesty Queen Victoria. 



CHAPTER 11. 

CHILDHOOD AND EDUCATION. 

The previous chapter dwelt upon some serious draw- 
backs to the Queen's happiness as a child. But if 
she was unfortunate in living in an atmosphere too 
highly charged with contention, her childhood was in 
another respect remarkably fortunate. Very few heirs 
to the throne have been brought up from infancy with 
an education carefully designed as a preparation for 
their future exalted station, combined with almost all 
the simplicity and domesticity of private life. But 
this unusual combination was secured for the Queen 
by the circumstances of her childhood. At the time 
of her birth the chances were decidedly against her 
succession. Even down to the last few months of his 
life, William IV. continued to speak of her as 
"Heiress Presumptive," not as "Heiress Apparent" 
to the throne. He never probably completely relin- 
quished the hope of having a child of his own to 
succeed him. In 1835 there had been rumors, which 
seemed well authenticated, that Queen Adelaide was 
about to give birth to a child. The absence of abso- 
lute certainty in the Princess Victoria's prospects of 
the succession, the reluctance of her uncles and of 
Parliament to establish her and her mother with an 
income suitable to their rank and her future position, 
all worked together, in combination with the good 
sense of her mother, to secure for the little Princess 
a childhood free from much of the pomp, formality, 
and flattery from which an heir to the throne seldom 
even partially escapes. ^ 

While she was thus protected from many of the dis- 



CHILDHOOD AND EDUCATION. 29 

advantages associated with her rank, its advantages 
were not neglected. The Duchess of Kent gathered 
about her at Kensington Palace a great many of the 
representatives of the foremost minds of the day in 
literature, science, and in social reform. Nearly all 
the memoirs of distinguished men and women of that 
period contain some mention of their gracious recep- 
tion at Kensington Palace by the Duchess, and the 
interest they had felt in seeing the little Princess. 
Among those who were received in this way may be 
mentioned Sir Walter Scott, Wilberforce, and Mrs. 
Somerville. 

The Duchess of Kent made the suitable education 
of her child the one absorbing object of her life ; and 
she seems to have realized that education does not 
consist in merely learning facts or acquiring accom- 
plishments, but should also aim at forming the char- 
acter and discipliniug the whole nature, so that it 
may acquire conscientiousness and the strength which 
comes from self-government. Keeping this end ever 
in view, and aided, no doubt, by a responsiveness in the 
child's own nature, the little Princess was trained in 
those habits of strict personal integrity which are the 
only unfailing safeguard for truthfulness and funda- 
mental honesty in regard to money and other posses- 
sions. All observers who have been brought into 
personal relationship with the Queen speak of her as 
possessing one of the most transparently truthful 
natures they have ever known. The Right Hon. John 
Bright, with his Quaker-bred traditions as to literal 
exactitude in word and deed, said that this was the 
trait in her character of which he carried away the 
most vivid impression. An anecdote is given in 
" The Life of Bishop Wilberforce, " illustrative of the 
Queen's truthfulness as a child. Dr. Davys, Bishop 
of Peterborough, formerly preceptor to Princess 



30 VICTORIA. 

Victoria, told Dr. Wilberforce that when he was 
teaching her, one day the little Princess was very 
anxious that the lesson should be over, and was rather 
troublesome. The Duchess of Kent came in and 
asked how she had behaved. Baroness Lehzen, the 
governess, replied that once she had been rather 
naughty. The Princess touched her and said, "No, 
Lehzen, twice ; don't you remember ? " 

The financial side of truthfulness is honesty ; and 
here again the Queen has instituted a new order of 
things in English royalty. We are so accustomed to 
the sway of a Sovereign who regards it as dishonest 
to owe more than she is ready and willing to pay, 
that we have almost forgotten that this was very far 
from being the case with her predecessors. Even the 
highly respectable Prince Leopold could not live 
within his income of £50,000 a year, and was £83,000 
in debt when he became King of the Belgians in 
183L 

Great attention was given to exactitude with regard 
to money in the Queen's early training. There are 
many stories of the little Princess visiting shops and 
relinquishing some desired purchase because she had 
not money enough to pay for it. One of these anec- 
dotes is preserved at Tunbridge Wells, and tells how 
the Princess Victoria, not having money enough to 
buy some greatly desired toy, so far went beyond her 
accustomed self-control as to ask the shopkeeper to 
reserve it for her till she had received a fresh instal- 
ment of her allowance for pocket-money, and that the 
child came on her donkey as early as seven o'clock in 
the morning to claim possession of the object she had 
set her heart on, the very instant she had the money 
to pay for it. Perhaps these lessons had their source 
from the frugal German Court of Coburg; but what- 
ever their origin, they have stood the Queen in good 



CHILDHOOD AND EDUCATION. 31 

stead, and have enabled her to set a perpetual good 
example to her subjects of the blessedness of obedience 
to the injunction, " owe no man anything. " It must 
not be forgotten, too, that she was not, throughout her 
girlhood, without an object lesson in the disagreeable 
consequences of extravagance. Her father had died 
in debt, and unless his creditors differed from the 
race of creditors in general, they did not fail during 
the seventeen years which elapsed between the Duke's 
death and his daughter's accession to remind his 
widow of the fact. One of the first acts of the young 
Queen on ascending the throne was to pay her father's 
debts, contracted before she was born. 

The scrupulousness with regard to money which 
was enjoined on her as a child has been one of the 
Queen's many claims to the loyalty of her people. 
Miss Martineau, in her " Thirty Years' Peace " (written 
about 1845), speaking of this aspect of Her Majesty's 
education and character, has said, " Such things are 
no trifles. The energy and conscientiousness brought 
out by such training are blessings to a whole people ; 
and a multitude of her more elderly subjects, to this 
day, feel a sort of delighted surprise as every year 
goes by without any irritation on any hand about 
regal extravagance — without any whispered stories 
of loans to the Sovereign — without any mournful 
tales of ruined tradesmen and exasperated creditors. " 

A trifling circumstance may here be mentioned 
illustrative of the Queen's economy in personal expen- 
diture. A Paris dressmaker, of world-wide fame, 
recently (1893) brought an action against a rival who 
was trading under the same name. In the course of 
evidence given at the trial the celebrated modiste 
stated that he had made dresses for every Royal lady 
in Europe except Her Majesty the Queen of England. 
Indeed, every one who has seen the Queen, either in 



32 VICTORIA. 

public or private, will agree that she is not indebted 
either to the dressmaker or milliner for the regal 
dignity which undoubtedly marks her bearing. 

Of the Queen's personal appearance as a child and 
young woman we have many contemporary records. 
Some of these speak in enthusiastic terms of her 
extreme loveliness as a child. One lady writes of a 
recent visit to the widowed Duchess: "The child is 
so noble and magnificent a creature that one cannot 
help feeling an inward conviction that she is to be 
Queen some day or other." Other writers speak of 
her lovely complexion, fair hair, and large expressive 
eyes. Greville is less complimentary ; but he was 
writing of a later period. Speaking of a child's ball 
given at Court for the little Queen of Portugal in 
1829, he says : " It was pretty enough, and I saw for 
the first time . . . our little Victoria. . . . Our little 
Princess is a short, plain-looking child, and not near 
so good-looking as the Portuguese." It was when 
this ball was first talked of that Lady Maria Coi>yng- 
ham gave dire offence to George IV. by saying,*'" Do 
give it, sir; it will be so nice to see the two little 
Queens dancing together." There is no necessary 
inconsistency in these different accounts of Princess 
Victoria's appearance. It is possible that a lovely 
infant may have become a plain child at ten years 
old. Of her appearance as sbe approached woman- 
hood, Mr. N. P. Willis, an American, writing in 
1835, describing his visit to Ascot, says : " In one of 
the intervals I walked under the King's stand, and 
saw Her Majesty the Queen (Adelaide) and the young 
Princess Victoria very distinctly. They were leaning 
over the railing, listening to a ballad-singer, and 
seeming to be as much interested and amused as any 
simple country folk would be. . . . The Princess is 
much better looking than any picture of her in the 









§;\-^ 








^-/zy^ 



"^-^C-C^t^ 




/o "^/^C^^ 



CHILDHOOD AND EDUCATION. 33 

shops, and for the heir to such a crown as that of 
England, quite unnecessarily pretty and interesting." 
Carlyle, in a private letter to his brother (April, 
1838), gave a vivid picture of the girl-Queen as he 
saw her then : — 

" Going through the Green Park yesterday, I saw her little Majesty 
taking her . . , departure for Windsor. I had seen her another day 
at Hyde Park Corner coming in from the daily ride. She is decidedly 
a pretty-looking little creature: health, clearness, graceful timidity, 
looking out from her young face, ' frail cockle on the black bottomless 
deluges.' One could not help some interest in her, situated as mortal 
seldom was.'' 

Writing of a later period. Baroness Bunsen, describ- 
ing the scene in the House of Lords at the opening of 
Parliament in 1842, says : — 

"The opening of Parliament was the thing from which I expected 
most, and I was not disappointed. The throngs in the streets, in the 
windows, in every place people could stand upon, all looking so pleased ; 
the splendid Horse Guards, the Grenadiers of the Guard . . . the Yeo- 
men of the Body-Guard. Then in the House of Lords, the Peers in their 
robes, the beautifully dressed ladies with many very beautiful faces; 
lastly, the procession of the Queen's entry, and herself, looking worthy 
and fit to be the converging point of so many rays of grandeur. It is 
self-evident that she is not tall, but were she ever so tall, she could not 
have more grace and dignity. . . . The composure with which she filled 
the throne while awaiting the Commons I much admired ; it was a test 
— no fidget, no apathy. Then her voice and enunciation cannot be 
more perfect. In short, it cannot be said that she did well, but that she 
was the Queen, — she was and felt herself to be the descendant of her 
ancestors." 

These last words exactly describe Her Majesty's 
bearing in age as well as in youth; and it is this, 
her intellectual grasp of the situation she fills as the 
highest officer of the State and the wearer of the 
crown of the Plantagenets, Tudors, and Stuarts, that 
renders her dignity so entirely independent of mere 
trappings and finery. It has been remarked that on 
the occasion of her public appearances, the Queen may 
have been the worst-dressed lady present, and have 
had by her side or in the immediate background a 

3 



34 VICTORIA. 

galaxy of fair women dressed with all the art that 
Paris or London could command, and yet she has 
looked every inch the Queen, and they have looked 
milliner's advertisements. She has over and over 
again proved that the saying, " Fine feathers make fine 
birds," is not universally true. 

In those portions of the Queen's Journals which 
have been published, evidence is not wanting of that 
pride of race which, if we have interpreted it aright, 
is the true source of Her Majesty's dignity of bearing. 
On one of her journeys through the Highlands, General 
Ponsonby reminded her that the great-great-grand- 
fathers of the men who were showing her every possible 
mark of loyalty and affection, had lost their heads 
for trying to dethrone the Queen's great-great-grand- 
father. "Yes," adds the Queen, "and J feel a sort of 
reverence in going over these scenes in this most 
beautiful country which 1 am proud to call my own, 
where there was such devoted J^alty to the family of 
my ancestors; for Stuart blood is in my veins, and 
I am now their representative, and the people are as 
devoted and loyal to me as they were to that unhappy 
race. " 

Returning to the subject of the influence of the 
Queen's early education and character, the remarkable 
des^ree to which her natural conscientiousness was 
developed is noticeable in a great variety of direc- 
tions. Her extreme punctuality is an instance in 
point. She never wastes the time of others by keep- 
ing them waiting for her. Punctuality has been 
described as "the courtesy of kings," and it is a 
courtesy in which the Queen is unfailing. Her care 
for her servants and household is another manifesta- 
tion of her conscientiousness. Her " Leaves from the 
Journal of our Life in the Highlands," and the sub- 
sequent book, " More Leaves, " are full of little touches 



CHILDHOOD AND EDUCATION. 35 

illustrative of the Queen's care for those dependent 
upon her, and her readiness to acknowledge the value 
of their services. Sir Arthur ., Helps, writing the 
introduction to the first of these. volumes, draws atten- 
tion to this feature of the Queen's character. He 
says : " Perhaps there is no person in these realms 
Avho ' takes a more deep and abiding interest in the 
welfare of the household committed to his charge than 
our gracious Queen does in hers, or who feels more 
keenly what are the reciprocal duties of masters and 
servants." , 

In one of the Queen's letters to Dean Stanley, on 
the occasion of the death of a valued servant of his, 
she says : " I am one of those who think the loss of a 
faithful servant the loss of a friend, and one who can 
never be replaced." In 1858, on their first- journey 
to Prussia, to visit the Princess Royal after her mar- 
riage, the Queen and Prince heard of the sudden death 
of a valuable servant of the- latter, who had been with 
him since his childhood. The Queen wrote in her 
Journal : " I turn sick now in writing it. . . . He died 
suddenly on Saturday at Merges of angina pectoris, I 
burst into tears. All day long the tears would rush 
every moment to my eyes, and this dreadful reality 
came to throw a gloom over the long-wished-for day 
of meeting with our dear child. ... I cannot think 
of my dear husband without Cart ! He seemed part of 
himself. We were so thankful for and proud of this 
good, faithful old servant. ... A sad breakfast we 
had indeed." ^ 

The Duchess of Kent made the education of the 
Princess her one end and aim during the minority of 
the latter. She was hardly ever out of her mother's 
sight, sleeping in her mother's room, having her 
supper, at a little table, by the side of her mother at 

1 Life of the Prince Consort, vi. 280, 281. 



36 VICTORIA. 

dinner. She was instructed in the usual educational 
subjects, besides, what was then unusual for a girl, 
Latin, Greek, and mathematics. From an early age 
she spoke French and German with fluency ; the latter 
indeed was almost another mother tongue. All her 
life she has shown delight in languages, and her sub- 
jects, especially those in Asia, were very interested to 
hear that, even in old age, she had begun to make a 
systematic study of Hindustani. From an early age 
she acquired considerable proficiency in drawing and 
music, and developed in youth a pleasant mezzo-soprano 
voice. One of Mendelssohn's letters to his family 
describes his visit to the Queen and Prince Consort 
at Buckingham Palace in 1842. She offered to sing 
one of his songs, and he handed her the album to 
choose one. "And which," writes Mendelssohn, "did 
she choose ? ' Schoner und schoner schmackt sich ' ! " 
The exclamation mark is due to the fact that this 
song was not by Mendelssohn at all, but by his sister 
Fanny. Germany in the forties would have been 
scandalized by a woman's name on the titlepage even 
of a song, so that Mendelssohn's album of songs was 
enriched by those which had been composed by his 
sister. The letter continues : " She [the Queen] sang 
it quite charmingly, in strict time and tune, and with 
very good execution. Only . . . where it goes down 
to D and comes up again chromatically she sang D 
sharp each time. . . . With the exception of this 
little mistake, it was really charming, and the last 
long G I never heard better, or purer, or more natural 
from any amateur. Then I was obliged to confess 
that Fanny had written the song (which I found very 
hard, but pride must have a fall), and begged her to 
sing one of my own also. " 

In the Queen's early childhood the knowledge that 
she was the probable heir to the throne was carefully 



CHILDHOOD AND EDUCATION. 37 

kept from her. In Lockhart's "Life of Scott " the fol- 
lowing entry is given from Scott's Journal, May 19th, 
1828: " Dined with the Duchess of Kent. I was very 
kindly received by Prince Leopold, and presented to 
the Princess Victoria, the Heir Apparent to the 
crown, as things now stand. . . . This little lady is 
educating with much care, and Avatched so closely 
that no busy maid has a moment to whisper, ' You are 
heir of England. ' I suspect if we could dissect the 
little heart we should find some pigeon or other bird 
of the heir had carried the matter. " The Queen has 
given her own authority for saying that this very 
natural surmise was mistaken, and has allowed the 
publication of the following letter from Her Majesty's 
governess. Baroness Lehzen, which contains one of the 
most interesting anecdotes of the Queen's childhood. 

The Regency Bill, which made the Duchess of Kent 
Regent in the event of the death of William IV. with^ 
out direct heirs while the Princess was still a minor, 
was passing through Parliament in 1830, and the 
occasion suggested to the governess that the time had 
come when her little charge should be made aware of 
her prospect of succeeding to the throne. Baroness 
Lehzen wrote in a letter to the Queen, dated 2nd 
December, 1867 : — 

" I then said to the Duchess of Kent that now, for the first time, your 
Majesty ought to know your place in the succession. Her Royal High- 
ness agreed with me, and I put the genealogical table into the historical 
hook. When Mr. Davys [the Queen's instructor, afterwards Bishop of 
Peterborough] was gone, the Princess Victoria opened the book again 
as usual, and, seeing the additional paper, said, ' I never saw that before.' 
' It Avas not thought necessary you should. Princess,' I answered. * I see 
I am nearer the throne than I thought.' ' So it is, madam,' I said. 
After some moments the Princess answered, ' Now, many a child would 
boast ; but they don't know the difficulty. There is much splendor, but 
there is more responsibility.' The Princess, having lifted up the fore- 
finger of her right hand while she spoke, gave me that little hand, say- 
mg, ' / will he good. I understand why you urged me so much to learn, 
even Latin. My aunts Augusta and Mary never did, but you told me 



38 VICTORIA, 

that Latin is the foundation of English grammar and of all the elegant 
expressions, and I learned it as you wished it; but I understand all 
better now/ And the Princess gave me her hand, repeating, ' I will be 
good.' " 

This anecdote gives the key-note to the Queen's 
character. Her childish resolve, 1 will he good, has 
been the secret of her strength throughout her reign. 
She has never shrunk from anything which has pre- 
sented itself to her in the light of a duty. When she 
became Queen she did not go through her business in 
a perfunctory way, giving her signature without ques- 
tion to whatever documents were placed before her. 
She required all the State business explained to her 
to such a degree that Lord Melbourne, her first Prime 
Minister, said laughingly that he would rather manage 
ten kings than one queen. On one occasion, in the 
early years of her reign, the Minister urged her to 
sign some document on the grounds of " expediency. " 
She looked up quietly, and said, " I have been taught 
to judge between what is right and what is wrong, but 
'expediency ' is a word I neither wish to hear nor to 
understand." Another word which she objected to 
was " trouble. " Mrs. Jameson relates that one of the 
Ministers told her that he once carried the Queen 
some papers to sign, and said something about manag- 
ing so as to give Her Majesty "less trouble," She 
looked up from her papers, and said, " Pray never let 
me hear those words again ; never mention the word 
' trouble.' Only tell me how the thing is to be done 
and done rightly, and I will do it if I can." This has 
been her principle throughout her reign : to do her 
S70rk as well as she knew how to do it, without sparing 
herself either trouble or responsibility. 

It is not only the larger questions of State policy 
that she follows now, after more than fifty years of 
sovereignty, with all the knowledge which long expe- 
rience gives, but she bestows close attention to the 



CHILDHOOD AND EDUCATION. 39 

details of organization in the different departments of 
the Government. If any change is proposed of which 
she does not see the bearing or the necessity, she 
requires to have the reasons which prompted it laid 
before her, and would withhold her sanction unless 
her judgment were convinced. She is a constant 
and indefatigable worker, and .those in attendance 
upon her have frequently expressed their surprise at 
her continuing at her work late into the night, and 
yet being almost unfailingly at her post again in the 
early morning. The child raising her little hand, 
and saying, "I will be good," has been in this and 
in many other ways the mother to the woman. The 
solemn words of the Coronation Service have not been 
profaned by her as so many monarchs have profaned 
them. The Archbishop, delivering the Sword of State 
into the Sovereign's hand at the Coronation, says; 
"Receive this kingly sword, brought now from the 
altar of God, and delivered to you by the hands of us, 
the servants and bishops of God, though unworthy. 
With this sword do justice, stop the growth of iniquity, 
protect the holy Church of God, help and defend 
widows and orphans, restore the things that are gone 
to decay, maintain the things that are restored, punish 
and reform what is amiss, and confirm what is in 
good order; that doing these things you may be 
glorious in all virtue, and so faithfully serve our Lord 
Jesus Christ in this life that you may reign forever 
with Him in the life which is to come. " All through 
the Queen's reign these words have been turned into 
actions ; they have inspired her to do her duty faith- 
fully and courageously and with unfailing self-sacrifice 
of her own inclinations and wishes. By so living she 
has revived the feeling of personal affection and loyalty 
to the throne on the part of her subjects which her 
immediate predecessors had done much to destroy. 



i^ 



40 VICTORIA. 

When we reflect upon the contrast which the pure- 
minded, pure-hearted girl presented to them we shall 
be able to understand something of the keen emotion 
of joyful loyalty which was evoked at her accession. 
But this will be the subject of the next chapter. 



CHAPTER III. 

ACCESSION TO THE THRONE. 

It is not easy to realize that in the lifetime of our 
own fathers and mothers there was in England a plot 
to change the succession and secure the crown for the 
" wicked uncle, " to the exclusion of the rightful heir. 
The whole story savors of romance, or at any rate 
of a much earlier period in our history, when John 
Lackland or E-ichard the Hunchback cheated their 
young nephews of crown and life. Yet the evidence 
of history on this point is unmistakable. In 1835 a 
plot was discovered and laid bare in Parliament, 
mainly by Joseph Hume, which had for its aim to 
secure the crown for the Duke of Cumberland and set 
aside the claims of Princess Victoria. The Duke, to 
do him justice, does not seem to have supposed that 
his personal merits and attractions would cause him 
to be made king by acclamation. But he appears to 
have thought he could ride in on the top of a wave of 
fanaticism got up over a No-popery cry. The passing 
of Catholic Emancipation in 1829 by the Tory Govern- 
ment of the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel 
was not accomplished without a great deal of real 
terror and misgiving that this act of plain justice to 
their Roman Catholic fellow-subjects was a breaking 
down of the barriers against Papal aggression, and 
that it was merely a step towards undoing the work of 
the Reformation. Orange Lodges, which up to that 
time had little vigorous existence out of Ireland, 
spread all over England, and were formed even in the 
army. The Duke of Cumberland, a precious champion 



42 VICTORIA. 

for any sort of religion, was their grand master. But 
he was not inconsistent: he had his own personal 
aggrandizement in view, and appealed to fanaticism, 
bigotry, and ignorance to help him to attain it. If he 
was acting a part, he understood his own character, 
and was not acting out of it. But he and the Orange 
Lodges too completely misunderstood the nation they 
were living in. The saying of Charles II. to his 
brother, afterwards James II. , might have shown them 
their mistake : " They will never kill me to make you 
king. " When hard pressed by political necessity, the 
English people have not shrunk from revolutionary 
changes in their constitution; but they would never 
have embarked on a revolution with the object of 
placing Ernest, Duke of Cumberland, on the throne. 
The ridiculous plot was rendered still more ridiculous 
by the assertion made by the conspirators that they 
feared the Duke of Wellington intended to seize the 
crown for himself ;i that the Iron Duke, the most 
sternly upright and devotedly loyal of subjects, meant 
to depose William lY., set aside the little Princess 
Victoria, and become Emperor of the English, as 
Bonaparte had become Emperor of the French. The 
assertion had only to be made, and made publicly, to 
be drowned in the ridicule it excited. However, the 
plot of the Orange Lodges, the Duke of Cumberland's 
association with it, the unveiling of the scheme in the 
House of Commons by Joseph Hume, and Lord John 
Russell's masterly dealing with the whole matter, was 
a nine days' wonder in 1835. An address to the 
King was unanimously agreed to, praying him to 
dissolve the Orange Lodges ; even the Orangemen in 
the House assented to this, and Greville says Lord 

1 In 1829 the Duke of Cumberland had tried to excite George IV.'s 
jealousy of the Duke of Wellington by habitually speaking of him to 
his royal brother as " King Arthur." 



ACCESSION TO THE THRONE. 43 

John's dignified eloquence melted them to tears. The 
Duke of Cumberland, seeing which way his cat had 
jumped, hastened to assure the Home Secretary that 
the dissolution of the societies of which he was Grand 
Master had his entire approval and acquiescence, and 
the whole of the foolish business appeared at an end. 

But this was not so. The elements of disturbance 
were quite genuine, and had not been removed even 
by a resolution of the House of Commons : these were 
the Duke of Cumberland's treachery and his No- 
popery nightmare. The original scheme had been to 
depose William IV. on the pretext that his giving the 
Royal Assent to the Reform Bill of 1832 was a symp- 
tom of insanity; the next step, the setting aside of 
the claims of Princess Victoria, was rendered attrac- 
tive to the Duke of Cumberland by the fact that she 
was a girl, and young; when, therefore, in 1837, 
William IV. was removed by death, another futile 
attempt was made to raise the No-popery cry against 
the accession of the Queen. Her uncle Leopold, 
King of the Belgians, had recently married Louise, 
daughter of Louis Philippe, a Roman Catholic Princess. 
Another member of the Coburg family. Prince Fer- 
dinand, cousin of Prince Albert, had also, quite 
recently, made a Roman Catholic marriage with 
Maria, Queen of Portugal. This at any rate showed 
that the Coburg family, who were known to have great 
influence with Princess Victoria, were not so exclu- 
sively Protestant as the Royal Family of England. 
But high as party feeling ran at the time, the bare 
suspicion that any treachery was intended to the young 
Queen caused a popular outburst of passionate loyalty 
such as had not been seen since the House of Bruns- 
wick had reigned in England. The warmth of this 
feeling in the curious warp and woof of human affairs 
was increased by the fact that to be ardently devoted 



44 VICTORIA. 

to the young Queen was to be ardently opposed to all 
the works and ways of the Duke of Cumberland, to be 
in favor of religious liberty and toleration, to support 
the Reform Bill and the abolition of slavery. It was 
Whig to be loyal to the Queen, Tory to be, if not 
disloyal, full of doubts and fears, imagining that with 
a young girl at the helm, known to be in sympathy 
with Whig principles, the ship of State was bound to 
split on anarchy and popery. These fears very soon 
disappeared as the Queen showed she had a mind and 
will of her own, and was no mere puppet in the hands 
of her Ministers. If at the outset of her reign she 
showed strong Whig tendencies, she was not long in 
grasping the fact that, as Sovereign, she was Queen 
of the whole people, and not the mere head of a party. 
There was, however, enough of revolutionary storm 
in the atmosphere to justify the Times in endeavoring 
to allay the fears of the ultra-Protestant party by 
reminding them that for the Queen to turn Papist, 
"or in any manner to follow the footsteps of the 
Coburg family " in marrying a Papist, " would involve 
an immediate forfeiture of the British Grown." This 
situation of affairs had the rather curious result of 
making the Irish among the most intensely loyal of 
the young Queen's subjects. O'Connell's stentorian 
voice was heard leading the cheers of the crowd out- 
side St. James's Palace on the day she was proclaimed 
Queen. He declared later, in a public speech, that if 
it were necessary he could get " five hundred thousand 
brave Irishmen to defend the life, the honor, and the 
person of the beloved young lady by whom England's 
throne is now filled. " Mr. Harry Grattan, son of the 
famous orator of the Irish Parliament of 1782-1800, 
thought the Tories so bent on the Queen's destruction 
that " If Her Majesty were once placed in the hands 
of the Tories, I would not give an orange-peel for her 



ACCESSION TO THE THRONE. 45 

life. " The expression " orange-peel " was, no doubt, 
a reference to the soubriquet his Irish opponents had 
bestowed upon Sir Robert Peel on account of his 
stanch Protestantism. 

These extraordinary ebullitions of party feeling 
would be hardly worth recording but for the explana- 
tion they afford of subsequent events relating to the 
establishment of Prince Albert, and for the curious 
contrast they offer to the feelings of political parties 
at the present time. They also explain why quiet, 
peace-loving people, taking no special interest in party 
politics, were so devoutly thankful that the operation 
of the Salic law in Hanover separated that kingdom 
from the Crown of England and enabled us to get quit 
of the Duke of Cumberland. No paper and no party 
ever pretended to regret him; indeed, it must have 
become abundantly obvious that his departure was, in 
a special degree, advantageous to his own party. He 
could be nothing but a source of weakness to them. 
"A man's foes are those of his own household" is 
even more true of political than of private affairs. 
The anxiety of the Tories to get rid of the Duke of 
Cumberland is well illustrated by one of Greville's 
anecdotes. When the late King (William IV.) had 
evidently only a few days to live, the Duke of Cum- 
berland consulted the Duke of Wellington as to what 
he should do. "I told him the best thing he could do 
was to go away as fast as he could. ' Go instantly, ' 
I said, ' and take care you donH get pelted. ' " He did 
go instantly, and his first act as King of Hanover was 
to suspend the constitution of the country and turn 
out of their chairs in Gottingen University seven dis- 
tinguished professors for the crime of holding Liberal 
opinions. No wonder the Duke of Wellington felt 
this sort of Toryism would manufacture Liberals and 
Radicals by the thousand in England. 



46 VICTORIA. 

The story has often been told of how the Queen 
received the news of her accession, and of the extra- 
ordinarily favorable impression she produced by the 
youthful dignity and grace with which she j)resided at 
her first Council. 

William IV. expired at Windsor about 2.30 a. m. 
on Tuesday, June 20th, 1837. The Archbishop of 
Canterbury, Dr. Howley, and the Lord Chamberlain, 
the Marquis of Conyingham, almost immediately " set 
out to announce the event to their young Sovereign. 
They reached Kensington Palace at about five; they 
knocked, they rang, they thumped for a considerable 
time before they could rouse the porter at the gates. 
They were again kept waiting in the courtyard, then 
turned into one of the lower rooms, where they seemed 
to be forgotten by everybody. They rang the bell, 
and desired that the attendant of the Princess Victoria 
might be sent to inform H. R. H. that they requested 
an audience on business of importance. After another 
delay, and another ringing to inquire the cause, the 
attendant was summoned, who stated that the Princess 
was in such a sweet sleep she could not venture to 
disturb her. They then said, ' We are come to the 
Queen on business of State, and even her sleep must 
give way to that. ' It did ; and to prove that she did 
not keep them waiting, in a few minutes she came 
into the room in a loose white nightgown and shawl, 
her nightcap thrown off, and her hair falling on her 
shoulders, her feet in slippers, tears in her eyes, but 
perfectly collected and dignified. "^ Another account 
states that the Queen's first words to the Archbishop 
on hearing his announcement were, " I beg your Grace 
to pray for me, " and that her first request to her mother 
after she had learned that she was Queen was that 
she might be left for two hours quite alone. On the 

1 Diaries of a Ladj of Quality, by Miss Wynn. 



ACCESSION TO THE THRONE. 47 

same day, about eleven o'clock in the morning, she 
held her first Council; and it maybe noted that in 
Miss Wynn's account of this ceremony it is stated 
that the first of her subjects who paid her homage was 
the Duke of Cumberland, who knelt and kissed her 
hand. "I suppose," says Miss Wynn, "he was not 
King of Hanover when he knelt to her." The Diarist 
goes on to mention that the next to offer homage was 
the Duke of Sussex ; but the young Queen would not 
allow him to kneel, but rose herself and kissed him 
on the forehead. This, however, differs slightly from 
Greville's account of the Queen's first Council, which 
must be now quoted : — 

" June 2\st. The King died at twenty minutes after two yesterday 
morning, and the young Queen met the Council at Kensington Palace 
at eleren. Never was anything like the first impression she produced, 
or the chorus of praise and admiration which is raised about her manner 
and behavior, and certainly not without justice. It was very extraordi- 
nary, and something far beyond what was looked for. Her extreme 
youth and inexperience, and the ignorance of the world concerning her, 
naturally excited intense curiosity to see how she would act on this try- 
ing occasion, and there was a considerable assemblage at the Palace, 
notwithstanding the short notice that was given. The first thing to be 
done was to teach her her lesson, which, for this purpose, Melbourne 
had himself to learn. I gave him the Council papers, and explained 
all that was to be done ; and he went and explained all this to her. He 
asked her if she would come into the room accompanied by the great 
officers of State, but she said she would come in alone. When the 
Lords were assembled the Lord President informed them of the King's 
death, and suggested, as they were so numerous, that a few of them 
should repair to the presence of the Queen and inform her of the event, 
and that their Lordships Avere assembled in consequence ; and accord- 
ingly the two Royal Dukes, the two Archbishops, the Chancellor, and 
Melbourne went with him. The Queen received him in the adjoining 
room alone. As soon as they had returned, the proclamation was read 
and the usual order passed, when the doors were thrown open and the 
Queen entered, accompanied by her two uncles, who advanced to meet 
her. She bowed to the Lords, took her seat, and then read her speech 
in a clear, distinct, and audible voice, and without any appearance of 
fear or embarrassment. She was quite plainly dressed, and in mourn- 
ing. After she had read her speech and taken and signed the oath for 
the security of the Church of Scotland, the Privy Councillors were 
sworn, the two Royal Dukes first by themselves ; and as these two old 



48 VICTORIA. 

men, her uncles, knelt before her, swearing allegiance and kissing her 
hand, I saw her blush up to the eyes, as if she felt the contrast between 
their civil and their natural relations. This was the only sign of emo- 
tion which she evinced. Her manner to them was very graceful and 
engaging; she kissed them both, and rose from her chair and moved 
towards the Duke of Sussex, who was farthest from her, and too infirm 
to reach her. She seemed rather bewildered at the multitude of men 
who were sworn, and who came, one after another, to kiss her hand ; 
but she did not speak to anybody, nor did she make the slightest dif- 
ference in her manner, or show any in her countenance to any individ- 
ual of any rank, station, or party. I particularly watched her when 
Melbourne and the Ministers, and the Duke of Wellington and Peel 
approached her.i She went through the whole ceremony, occasionally 
looking to Melbourne for instruction when she had any doubt what to 
do, which hardly ever occurred, and with perfect calmness and self- 
possession, but at the same time with a graceful modesty and propriety 
particularly interesting and ingratiating. When the business was done 
she retired as she had entered, and I could see that nobody was in the 
adjoining room. . . . Peel likewise said how amazed he was at her 
manner and behavior, at her apparent deep sense of her situation, her 
modesty, and at the same time her firmness. She appeared, in fact, to 
be awed, but not daunted ; and afterwards the Duke of Wellington told 
me the same thing, and added that if she had been his own daughter he 
could not have desired to see her perform her part better. It was 
settled that she was to hold a Council at St. James's this day, and be 
proclaimed there at ten o'clock : and she expressed a wish to see Lord 
Albemarle, who went to her and told her he was come to take her 
orders. She said, ' I have no orders to give ; you know all this so much 
better than I do that I leave it all to you. I am to be at St. James's at 
ten to-morrow, and must beg you to find me a conveyance proper for 
the occasion.' Accordingly he went and fetched her in State with a 
great escort. ... At twelve o'clock she held a Council, at which she 
presided with as much ease as if she had been doing nothing else all 
her life ; and though Lord Lansdown and my colleague had contrived 
between them to make some confusion with the Council papers, she 
was not put out by it. She looked very well, and though so small a 
stature, and without much pretension to beauty, the gracefulness of her 
manner and the good expression of her countenance give her, on the 
whole, a very agreeable appearance, and with her youth inspire an ex- 
cessive interest in all who approach her, which I can't help feeling my- 
self. After the Council she received the Archbishops and Bishops, and 
after them the Judges. They all kissed her hand, but she said nothing 
to any of them ; very different in this from her predecessor, who used to 
harangue them all, and had a speech ready for everybody." 

1 This is evidently in reference to the general belief that the Queen 
was a strong partisan of the Whig party. 



ACCESSION TO THE THRONE. 49 

Greville then describes the young Queen's thought- 
ful consideration for everything that could soothe and 
cheer the Queen Dowager, and adds : — 

"■ In short, she appears to act with every sort of good taste and good 
feeling, as well as good sense ; and, as far as it has gone, nothing can 
be more favorable than the impression she has made, and nothing can 
promise better than her manner and conduct do, though it would be 
rash to count too confideutly upon her judgment and discretion in more 
weighty matters. No contrast can be greater than that between the 
personal demeanor of the present and the late Sovereigns at their respect- 
ive accessions. William IV. was a man who, coming to the throne at 
the mature age of sixty-five, was so excited by the exaltation that he 
nearly went mad, and distinguished himseK by a thousand extravagances 
of language and conduct to the alarm or amusement of all who witnessed 
his strange freaks. . . . The young Queen, who might well be either 
dazzled or confounded with the grandeur and novelty of her situation, 
seems neither the one nor the other, and behaves with a decorum and 
propriety beyond her years, and with all the sedateness and dignity, 
the want of which was so conspicuous in her uncle." 

In this vivid personal description by an eye-witness 
we see in the grave dignity of the young girl the same 
dutiful child who, at eleven years old, had said, 
when she learned her future destiny, " There is much 
splendor, but there is more responsibility," and, 
lifting her little hand, added, "I will be good." 

Greville describes the impression made by the young 
Queen within the Palace upon her Ministers and 
servants. Miss Martineau, another contemporary, 
describes the impression produced outside the Palace, 
on the crowd in the streets who came to witness the 
ceremony of the proclamation. She refers to the 
intense joy of whatever was sound and wholesome in 
the nation, that the ill-doing sons of George III. no 
longer occupied the throne, and that it was filled in- 
stead by a young girl, prudent, virtuous, and conscien- 
tious, reared in health, simplicity, and purity. She says 
even exaggerated hopes were awakened by the change ; 
people seemed to expect that the fact of having a 
virtuous Sovereign, strong in the energies of youth, 

4 



-50 VICTORIA. 

was in itself a guarantee that all was to go well: 
" That the Lords were to work well with the Commons, 
the people were to be educated, everj^body was to have 
employment and food, all reforms were to be carried 
through, and she herself would never do anything 
wrong or make any mistakes." 

Those who represented that it was an injustice to 
the Queen to expect her to work miracles — 

"were thought cold and grudging in their loyalty, and the gust of 
national joy swept them out of sight. In truth, they themselves felt 
the danger of being carried adrift from their justice and prudence when 
they met their Queen face to face at her proclamation. As she stood 
at tlie window of St. James's Palace . . . her pale face wet with tears, 
but calm and simply grave, — her plain black dress and bands of brown 
hair giving an air of Quaker-like neatness which enhanced the gravity, 
— it Avas scarcely possible not to form wild hopes from such an aspect 
of sedateness — not to forget that, even if imperfection in the Sovereign 
herseK were out of the question, there were limitations in her position 
which must make her powerless for the redemption of her people, except 
through a wise choice of advisers, and the incalculable influence of a 
virtuous example shining abroad from the pinnacle of society." 

The young Queen's character came out in every- 
thing she did. Reference has already been made to 
her tender consideration towards the Dowager Queen 
Adelaide. The Queen addressed a letter of condolence 
to her on her husband's death, and addressed it to 
" Her Majesty the Queen. " It was pointed out to her 
that the correct address would be " Her Majesty the 
Queen Dowager." "I am quite aware," said Queen 
Victoria, "of Her Majesty's altered character, but I 
will not be the first person to remind her of it. " She 
placed Windsor Castle at the disposal of Queen 
Adelaide for as long as it suited her health and con- 
venience. But while yielding with the utmost grace 
on various little matters in which her doing so might 
serve to soothe and console the Queen Dowager, the 
young Queen showed a knowledge of her own position 
and what was due to it in substantial privilege, no 



ACCESSION TO THE THRONE. 51 

less than on points of etiquette, that quite astonished 
her Ministers. Thus when she went for the first time 
after her accession to visit the Queen Dowager at 
Windsor, she told Lord Melbourne that as the flag on 
the Round Tower was half-mast high, it might be 
thought necessary to elevate it on her arrival, and 
she desired Lord Melbourne to send orders beforehand 
that this should not be done. Melbourne ••' had never 
thought of the flag or knew anything about it, but it 
showed her knowledge of forms, and her attention to 
trifles." 

The numerous children of the late King resigned 
into her hands their various appointments, and the 
pensions that had been allowed them. She accepted 
these resignations to show her right to do so, and 
afterwards reappointed them, behaving with the great- 
est kindness and liberality. Greville speaks over and 
over again of the remarkable union she presented 
of womanly sympathy, girlish naivete, and queenly 
dignity. He says every one who was about her was 
warmly attached to her, "but that all feel the impos- 
sibility of for a moment losing sight of the respect 
which they owe her. She never ceases to be a queen, 
but is always the most charming, cheerful, obliging, 
unaffected queen in the world." The tears which she 
shed at her proclamation were due to the intense 
emotion awakened by her position ; they by no means 
betokened a morbid or hysterical temperament. The 
records of the early years of the Queen's reign con- 
stantly speak of her gayety and good spirits. At her 
coronation, in 1838, she is said to have looked as 
radiant as a girl on her birthday. 

The demise of the Crown necessitated a dissolution 
of Parliament. A general election took place in 
August, 1837, in which the Whigs were again returned 
to power, but by a reduced majority. 



52 VICTORIA. 

Lord Melbourne was again Prime Minister, and con- 
tinued to act as the Queen's chief adviser and coun- 
sellor, not only in public affairs, but also on every per- 
sonal matter in which she felt she needed the advice 
of an experienced man of the world. There were some 
who regretted the Queen's extreme reliance on Lord 
Melbourne, looking upon him as a man of an essen- 
tially frivolous and volatile nature; those who held 
this opinion appear to have misjudged him, but the 
mistake was one for which Lord Melbourne himself 
was chiefly responsible. He deliberately put on an 
affectation of foolish frivolity on many of his appear- 
ances in public. He would blow a feather about or 
toy with a sofa-cushion when he was receiving a 
solemn deputation, with apparently the express object 
of producing the impression that he was incapable of 
giving serious attention to serious things. He had to 
be found out, detected in earnestness as rogues are 
detected in dishonesty, by close and careful watching 
when he believed himself unobserved. Sydney Smith 
was one of those who unmasked him, and showed that 
with all his air of being hopelessly idle and trivial, 
he really was an honest and diligent Minister. In 
his important position as Prime Minister to the girl- 
Queen, he showed tact, discretion, and devotion, and 
won her complete confidence and friendship. Until 
the Queen's marriage, he virtually combined the func- 
tions of Private Secretary to the Queen with those of 
Prime Minister. He was much more her intimate 
friend than a Prime Minister had ever been to a Sov- 
ereign before. He saw her every day, dined with her 
constantly, and sat next her at table, and had the art 
of explaining all the business of State without boring 
her with sermons and long speeches. He never treated 
her, as Mr. Brett has said, as if she were a public 
meeting. He had first made a very favorable impres- 



ACCESSION TO THE THRONE. 53 

sion upon her on the occasion of the last of the unfor- 
tunate disputes which took place between William IV. 
and the Duchess of Kent. Early in June, 1837, 
Princess Victoria, having then attained her majority, 
the King offered to settle X10,000 a year on her. 
The Duchess wished that X6,000 of this should be for 
herself, and X4,000 for the Princess. There were the 
usual unseemly squabbles, and neither would give 
way. Melbourne conducted the business on the part 
of the King, and although he must have known that 
the Princess Victoria would be Queen in a very short 
time, he yet defended his master's views and interests 
with a warmth and tenacity which proved him to be 
no time-server. It is equally to his credit and to that 
of the young Queen that this circumstance was the 
foundation of the full confidence and esteem which 
she afterwards placed in him. Greville describes 
their relations as being almost like those of father 
and daughter. "I have no doubt he is passionately 
fond of her, as he might be of his daughter if he had 
one, and the more because he is a man with the 
capacity for loving, without having anything in the 
world to love. It is become his province to educate, 
instruct, and form the most interesting mind and 
character in the world. ... It is a great proof of 
the discretion and purity of his conduct and behavior 
that he is admired, respected, and liked by the whole 
Court." 

If Melbourne was, in the eyes of the world, the 
Queen's tutor in statesmanship, there was another 
behind the scenes no less assiduously devoting him- 
self to her instruction. Shortly before the late King's 
death. Peel had expressed a hope that Leopold would 
not come over immediately on his niece's accession, 
as his influence and interference would cause jealousy 
and heart-burning. Leopold did not come, for the 



54 VICTORIA. 

excellent reason that he was there already in the 
person, alter ego, of the faithful friend and trusted 
servant, Baron Stockmar. Stockmar, though at one 
time somewhat doubtful whether Prince Albert would 
prove the right Consort for the Queen of England, 
had by this time thoroughly identified himself with 
the realization of Leopold's dream of reproducing in 
Victoria and Albert the loves and hopes and ambitions 
which had been so cruelly crushed at Claremont in 
1817. Charlotte and Leopold were to live again in 
Victoria and Albert. But in order that the dream 
should come true, it was necessary that Stockmar and 
Leopold should have their hand on the " very pulse of 
the machine," the hearts and the characters of the 
two young people themselves. King Leopold had 
Prince Albert with him in Brussels for ten months, 
from June, 1836, while Stockmar proceeded to Ken- 
sington to be with the Princess immediately she 
attained her majority, to aid her by his counsel and 
advice. Her accession, which followed within less 
than a month, found him still with her; and from 
henceforth until her happy marriage in 1840 his time 
was spent with one or other of the young people. To 
the end of his life he spent much time with them, and 
remained their intimate friend and most trusted 
counsellor in all matters, both public and domestic. 

Stockmar, besides his share in bringing about the 
marriage of the Queen with her cousin, had an 
extremely important political influence on her, in 
thoroughly grounding her in the principles of consti- 
tutional monarchy. Although no Englishman, it was 
a case of plus royaliste que le RoL He was more 
English than the English in his grasp of, and devotion 
to, our system of government. He wrote to the Prince 
in 1854: "I love and honor the English Constitution 
from conviction; . . . in my eyes it is the foundation- 



ACCESSION TO THE THRONE. 55 

corner-cope-stone of the entire political civilization 
of the human race, present and to come." He was 
untiring in impressing upon the Queen, and later on 
the Prince, that the Sovereign belongs, or should 
belong, to no party. She must be equally loyal to 
her Ministers, to whatever party they may belong. 
Her experience at the head of the State will enable 
her to detect among her statesmen those who have the 
good of their country sincerely at heart, while differ- 
ing, as human beings must differ, as to the means by 
which that good is to be attained. There will be 
some in all parties who make the honor and welfare 
of their country their first object, and there are some 
in all parties who are wishing to dishonor and injure 
their country, if they think they perceive party 
advantage to be gained by doing so. To the first of 
these the Sovereign's confidence should be given, 
irrespective of party differences. 

Leopold and Stockmar between them formulated 
the position of a constitutional monarch much more 
definitely than it had ever been formulated before. 
Their pupils were the Queen and her husband, towards 
whose union events were now rapidly tending. 



CHAPTER lY. 

LOVE AND POLITICS. 

The first important political event of the Queen's 
reign was the insurrection in Canada, which broke 
out in the late autumn of 1837. The Queen has her- 
self told us that, notwithstanding all King Leopold's 
and Stockmar's instructions, she was at this time 
an ardent Whig in her political sympathies ; but the 
history of the Canadian insurrection, while ultimately 
showing the value of colonial self-government as a 
safeguard against rebellion, demonstrated the wisdom 
of their maxims that it was the duty of a constitu- 
tional Sovereign to keep aloof from party, and also 
was one of a series of events which revealed to the 
Queen the real character of many of the able states- 
men of both parties by whom she was surrounded. 
The first effect of the policy of the Whig Government 
in Canada was disastrous to them as a Ministry. The 
Earl of Durham, whom they had appointed High Com- 
missioner, with very large powers to deal with the 
insurrection, showed a masterly grasp of principles, 
combined with a total want of judgment in detail. 
His failure in details was at first all that was appar- 
ent ; he went far beyond his large legal powers ; his 
ordinances were disallowed by Parliament, and he re- 
signed his office, publishing, before he left his official 
residence at Quebec, a proclamation attacking the 
Government which had appointed him. Almost the 
only group of politicians who supported him at home 
were the Radicals, who, in or out of Parliament, were 
influenced by J. S. North. 



LOVE AND POLITICS. 57 

In the House of Lords the ultra-Liberal Brougham 
joined with the ultra-Tory Lyndhurst in scathing 
attacks on Lord Durham and the Government. It 
was soon evident that Brougham rejoiced in any 
national calamity in Canada or elsewhere if it afforded 
him means of damaging the party of which he was 
a former member. The Duke of Wellington, on the 
other hand, had a single eye to his country's welfare. 
The Canadian insurrection placed her in difficulty and 
danger ; and his first thought was how to get her out 
of the difficulty, and avert the danger. He entirely 
sunk all party considerations in national objects, and 
as even his enemies were obliged to confess, "that 
man's first object is to serve his country, with a sword 
if necessary, or with a pickaxe. " In the first debate 
in the Lords on Canada, Brougham "delivered a 
tremendous philippic of three hours. The Duke of 
Wellington made a very noble speech, just as it 
befitted him to make at such a moment, and of course 
it bitterly mortified and provoked the Tories, who 
would have had him make a party question of it, and 
thought of nothing but abusing, vilifying, and embar- 
rassing the Government." On the next occasion, 
when another party field-day was arranged in the 
House of Lords, the Duke was expected to make some 
amends to his party, and explain away the moderation 
of his former speech; but he made a second speech 
quite as moderate as the first. Greville's mother told 
the Duke how angry his party were with him for what 
he had said, and his only reply was, "Depend upon it, 
it was true. " This was the course invariably pursued 
by the Duke ; in times of danger he dropped all party 
considerations, and thought of nothing but how to 
serve his country. When the China War broke out 
in 1840, when the Whigs were in office, he supported 
the Government in the House of Lords with all the 



58 VICTORIA. 

strength he could command. Greville told him that 
his own party were to the last degree annoyed and 
provoked by his speech. He replied: "I know that 
well enough, and I don't care one damn, ... J have 
not time not to do what is right. " 

Peel had shown the same spirit during the general 
election that followed the Queen's accession. Certain 
low Tories of the baser sort had not hesitated to make 
party capital out of the unpopularity of the New Poor 
Law, passed by the Whigs in 1834. Peel would have 
nothing to do with this ; for though the Act could not 
but be unpopular in certain quarters, he was convinced 
of its necessity, and wholly discountenanced the at- 
tacks upon it. 

These two incidents in the political warfare of the 
first months of her reign must have had a considerable 
influence in forming the young Queen's judgment on 
men and parties. Events framed themselves into a 
sort of new version of the judgment of Solomon, and 
enabled her to distinguish between the real and false 
patriots, between those statesmen who really loved 
their country and acted on conviction, and those who 
only pretended to love, and acted from self-interest. 

A very brief review of the chief political events of 
1837-40 will serve to show of what an absorbing 
nature they must have been to the Queen. The Anti- 
Corn Law agitation was just beginning to show its 
great importance; in antagonism with this, and 
parallel with it, was the more or less revolutionary 
Chartist movement, associated in these early years of 
the reign with riots at Birmingham, Manchester, and 
Newport, Monmouthshire. The country was in a 
very disturbed state; the Government was weak, 
and inspired no confidence ; moreover, the perennial 
trouble in Ireland was just then in a more than 
usually acute stage. 



LOVE AND POLITICS. 59 

Besides these larger political interests, there were 
others of a character more personal to the Queen her- 
self, which must for a time have occupied and inter- 
ested her almost to the exclusion of even more weighty 
matters. The gorgeous ceremonial of the coronation 
took place in June, 1838. The cheers of the Lon- 
doners in honor of Marshal Soult on that occasion, 
curiously enough, did something to produce a more 
friendly feeling between France and England, and 
paved the way for an alliance between the two 
countries. There are such a number of graphic 
accounts by eye-witnesses of the coronation that it is 
unnecessary here to attempt to reproduce them. As 
usual, the spectators saw what they brought with 
them the capacity to see. One gives a detailed account 
of the pageant, the floods of golden light, illuminating 
gold and jewels and velvety robes; another sees a 
young life dedicating itself to the public service. 
Lord Shaftesbury was one of these latter ; the note in 
his diary on the coronation is : " It has been a 
wonderful period, ... an idle pageant, forsooth ? 
As idle as the coronation of King Solomon, or the 
dedication of his temple." 

A purely domestic affair, in 1839, must have caused 
the Queen much anxiety and trouble. One of the 
ladies attendant on the Duchess of Kent, Lady Flora 
Hastings, was accused of being with child; and she 
was ordered not to appear at Court till she could clear 
herself of the imputation. Subsequent medical exami- 
nation proved the entire innocence of the unfortunate 
lady, who was suffering from a disease of which 
modern surgical skill has very largely reduced the 
perils. At that time, however, it was supposed to be 
beyond all human aid, and the poor lady died within 
a very few months after the humiliation to which she 
had been subjected. There was naturally an intensely 



60 VICTORIA. 

strong feeling of commiseration for her. No one was 
to blame exactly in the matter ; one can quite under- 
stand the determination of those who felt themselves 
the natural protectors of the young Queen, to guard 
her Court from the scandals and disgraces of a loose 
standard of conduct ; but it was generally felt that a 
little more tact, a little more kindness, even suppos- 
ing the poor lady to have been guilty, would have 
prevented the report being blazoned all over London 
and England in the way it was. This scandal very 
much weakened the Ministry in the estimation of the 
country, rather unjustly as it seems to us now; for 
the whole matter was one relating to the Queen's 
private establishment, and not to her political ad- 
visers. It was a delicate matter which ought to have 
been dealt with by an experienced woman, possessed 
of good feeling and good sense. But Lord Melbourne 
was blamed, and people said, " What is the use of the 
Prime Minister being domiciled in the Palace, unless 
he is able to prevent the shame and mortification of 
such blunders ? " 

Another of the incidents of 1889 was as much 
domestic as political. The famous Bedchamber ques- 
tion excited the Houses of Parliament and the country 
to a degree which it is difficult now to understand. 
It was one of Lifers little poems that the course which 
events took in this matter led the Whigs to champion 
Tory principles, and vice versa. Lord Melbourne's 
Government was virtually defeated on his Jamaica 
Bill, in May, 1839. Lord Melbourne resigned, and 
advised the Queen to send for the Duke of Wellington. 
His opinion had been expressed on a former occasion, 
that he and Peel would not make good Ministers to a 
Sovereign who was a young girl. " I have no small- 
talk," he had said, "and Peel has no manners." The 
sturdy old lion had yet to learn that a woman could 



LOVE AND POLITICS. 61 

appreciate something beyond small-talk. When he 
saw the Queen after Melbourne's resignation, she told 
him she was very sorry to lose Lord Melbourne, who 
had been almost like a father to her since her acces- 
sion; the Duke was greatly pleased with her frank- 
ness, but excused himself from serving her, on the 
grounds of his age and deafness. He also said that 
the Prime Minister ought to be leader of the House 
of Commons, and advised her to send for Peel, which 
she accordingly did. The want of manners proved 
more serious than the want of small-talk, for Sir 
Robert Peel, mainly through a misunderstanding, 
presently found himself involved in what almost 
amounted to a personal quarrel with the Queen about 
the appointment of the ladies of her household. She 
thought he wanted to dismiss all her old friends, and 
even her private attendants. She imagined that it 
might be proposed to deprive her of the services of 
her former governess, Baroness Lehzen, who had now 
become one of her secretaries. She felt bound to 
make a stand against what she considered an encroach- 
ment on her independence. The Duke of Wellington 
and Peel saw her again together, but made no impres- 
sion on her. If they had explained that Peel only 
wished to remove the ladies who held the offices that 
are now recognized as political, the dispute would 
never have arisen ; but as it was there was a deadlock. 
The Queen wrote to Melbourne : " Do not fear that I 
was not calm and composed. They wanted to deprive 
me of my ladies, and I suppose they would deprive 
me next of my dressers and my housemaids; they 
wished to treat me like a girl, but I will show them 
that I am Queen of England ! " Lord Melbourne and 
Lord John Russell advised the Queen that she was 
quite right, and supported her in her determination 
not to give way ; so that the Whigs found themselves 



62 VICTORIA. 

defending the principle that the will of the Sovereign 
is paramount over the advice of her Ministers and 
public considerations ; while the Tories were defend- 
ing the opposite doctrine. Angry discussions took 
place in both Houses ; Lord Brougham in the House 
of Lords opening the sluice-gates in a three hours' 
speech that Greville calls " a boiling torrent of rage, 
disdain, and hatred." The end of it was that Sir 
Robert Peel declined to undertake to form a Govern- 
ment, and Lord Melbourne was recalled ; he had been 
in a very weak position before; but he was still 
further weakened by the events that had just taken 
place. 

In after years the Queen, with her accustomed gen- 
erosity, took the whole blame upon herself. Curiously 
enough, it was Lord John Russell, who had, in 1839, 
encouraged the Queen in the line she took on the 
Bedchamber question, who asked her in 1854, if she 
had not been advised by some one else in the matter. 
"She replied with great candor and naivete, 'No, it 
was entirely my own foolishness. ' " 

These events excited the whole country to an extra- 
ordinary degree, and it is not astonishing that they 
were intensely absorbing to the Queen, and that she 
therefore, for the time, dismissed from her mind all 
thoughts of marriage. Indeed, she wrote to her uncle 
Leopold in July, 1839, stating very strongly her 
intention to defer her marriage for some years. To 
Stockmar also the Queen expressed the same inten- 
tion. These diplomatists do not appear to have 
argued the matter with Her Majesty ; but they thought 
they knew how to shake her resolution. She had 
only once seen her cousin Albert, when he had come 
over to England with his father and his elder brother, 
Ernest, for a few weeks' visit to the Duchess of Kent, 
in 1836. He was then a boy, very stout, as the Queen 



LOVE AND POLITICS. 63 

herself has told us, but amiable, natural, unaffected, 
and merry. He had now (1839) greatly improved in 
appearance and developed in character, and Leopold 
determined on sending him to England again on a 
second visit to his cousin. After his first visit the 
Princess, as she then was, had written to her uncle 
Leopold in a strain which showed that she thought 
her future marriage with her cousin Albert was a 
practical certainty; she begged her uncle "to take 
care of the health of one now so dear to me, and to 
take him under your special protection ; " and she added 
she trusted " all would go prosperously and well on 
this subject, now of so much importance to me." 

The Prince wrote immediately on the Queen's acces- 
sion to congratulate his "dearest cousin," and to 
remind her that in her hands now lay " the happiness 
of millions." But he said nothing of his own happi- 
ness; nothing was settled, and the correspondence 
between the cousins was suffered to drop. The Queen 
generously blames herself for this. A memorandum 
made by Her Majesty to "The Early Years of the 
Prince Consort " is very characteristic. " Nor can 
the Queen now," she writes, "think without indigna- 
tion against herself of her wish to keep the Prince 
waiting for probably three or four years, at the risk 
of ruining all his prospects for life, until she might 
feel inclined to marry ! And the Prince has since 
told her that he came over in 1839 with the intention 
of telling her that if she could not then make up her 
mind, she must understand that he could not wait now 
for a decision, as he had done at a former period when 
their marriage was first talked about. " 

It is probable that no one but the Queen herself 
thinks she was to blame in the matter. She had seen 
her cousin only when he was a boy of seventeen, and 
she a girl of the same age. She had acquiesced in 



64 VICTORIA. 

the wish of her closest advisers that she should regard 
him as her future husband, but she had at the time of 
her accession no strong personal feeling in the matter. 
She did not feel then, as she felt afterwards, that the 
happiness of her whole future life was involved in 
this union ; and absorbed as she must have been in the 
intense interest of being the centre of the inner circle 
of politics, and in learning the duties and going 
through the ceremonials of her new position, it is no 
wonder that for a time she dismissed all thoughts of 
marriage. Indeed, the happiness of what she so often 
called her "blessed marriage" might have been 
marred had she not waited till her heart spoke. 

The Prince Consort's was a singularly pure and 
disinterested nature. As a child he possessed a 
remarkable degree of beauty, and a natural disposition 
almost without flaw. All the associates of his youth 
agree in speaking of his perfect moral purity, com- 
bined with gayety and courage; but he was not one 
of those preternaturally perfect children who hardly 
exist out of books, and even these are generally 
destined to an early grave. His childish letters and 
diaries record that he fought with his brother and 
cried over his lessons like other little boys. When 
he was only five years old his father and mother sepa- 
rated, and were afterwards divorced. He was hence- 
forth separated entirely from his mother, who died in 
1831. Prince Albert resembled his mother in person 
and mind, and although so early taken from her, he 
retained through life the strongest feeling of affection 
for her, and one of his first gifts to the Queen was a 
little pin which had belonged to his mother. She 
was beautiful, intelligent, and warm-hearted, and 
had a great fund of drollery and power of mimicry, 
which her younger son inherited from her. 

Two very affectionate grandmothers, or rather a 



LOVE AND POLITICS. 65 

grandmother and a step-grandmother, did what in 
them lay to supply the mothering of which the Prince 
and his elder brother were deprived through the unfor- 
tunate difference between their parents. The two 
children were fortunate in possessing as a tutor a 
Herr Florschutz, of Coburg, one of those men who 
have something of the woman's tenderness for little 
children. He was often seen playing the part more 
of a kind nurse than that of a tutor, and carrjdng the 
little Albert in his arms. 

The greatest care was bestowed upon Prince Albert's 
education; his grandmother and his uncle Leopold 
kept constantly before their eyes and in their hearts 
the destiny for which they intended him. He pursued 
his studies of mathematics, jurisprudence, and con- 
stitutional government partly under tutors, but also 
at Brussels under his uncle's own immediate super- 
vision, and later at the University of Bonn. When 
it was decided that his education should be carried on 
in a somewhat wider atmosphere than the little Court 
of Coburg could afford, Berlin was not selected because 
it was both " priggish " and " profligate ; " Vienna was 
rejected on account of its peculiar relations towards 
Germany ; the choice fell on Brussels, because he 
could here study the constitutionalism which would 
afterwards be such an important factor in his life 
as husband of the Queen of England. As early as 
1836 Stockmar congratulated Leopold that the young 
Prince was beginning to acquire "something of an 
English look." 

When Princess Victoria became Queen in 1837, her 
marriage with her cousin began to form a topic of 
gossip ; and in order to divert attention from it. King 
Leopold sent Prince Albert and his brother for a pro- 
longed tour over South Germany, Switzerland, and 
Italy. In 1838 King Leopold had a long conversation 

5 



66 VICTORIA. 

with his nephew on the subject of the projected mar- 
riage, and found that he looked at the whole question 
from the " most elevated and honorable point of view. " 
"If I am not mistaken in him," wrote the King to 
Stockmar, "he possesses all the qualities required to 
fit him for the position which he will occupy in Eng- 
land. His understanding is sound, his apprehension 
clear and rapid, and his heart is in the right place." 
The young Prince said he was quite ready to submit 
to any delay in the marriage which the Queen might 
desire, but that he felt that he had a right to demand 
some definite assurance from her as to her ultimate 
intentions. He had no fancy to play the ridiculous 
part so often forced upon Queen Elizabeth's numerous 
suitors, of hanging about her for years, having his 
matrimonial prospects talked of all over Europe, in 
order at the end to learn that the lady had never had 
the least intention of marrying him. 

It was either to obtain this definite assurance from 
the Queen herself, or to withdraw entirely from the 
whole affair, that he came to England, again accom- 
panied by his brother. Prince Ernest, on October 10th, 
1839. On the 15th he was the Queen's betrothed 
husband. All the Queen's reasons for desiring the 
postponement of her marriage with her cousin vanished 
in his presence ; they were overwhelmed by the irre- 
sistible feeling inspired by the Prince. In the memo- 
randum by the Queen previously quoted in part, she 
had stated that no worse school for a young girl, or 
one more detrimental to all natural feelings and affec- 
tions, could be imagined than that of being Queen at 
eighteen. Very few persons are qualified to express 
an opinion on the point, but it is quite certain that 
being Queen at eighteen had neither destroyed Her 
Majesty's capacity of loving, nor her power of inspir- 
ing love. The letters of the two young lovers to their 



LOVE AND POLITICS. 67 

friends, to announce their engagement, are full of 
the music of overflowing happiness. They both wrote 
to Stockmar. The Queen said : " Albert has com- 
pletely won my heart, and all was settled between us 
this morning. ... I feel certain he will make me 
very happy. I wish I could say I felt as certain of 
my making him happy, but I shall do my best. "^ The 
Prince's letter says: "Victoria is so good and kind 
to me that I am often puzzled to believe that I should 
be the object of so much affection. . . . More, or 
more seriously, I cannot write. I am at this moment 
too bewildered to do so. 

" Das Auge sicht den Himmel off en, 
Es schwelgt das Herz in Seligkeit." ^ 

The Queen's position made it necessary for her to 
offer herself in marriage to her cousin, not to wait 
till he sought her love. In her letter to her uncle 
Leopold, she tells him, " My mind is quite made np. 
I told Albert this morning of it. The warm affection 
he showed me on learning this, gave me great pleasure. 
He seems perfection, and I think I have the prospect 
of very great happiness before me. I love him more 
than I can say, and shall do everything in my power 
to render this sacrifice (for such, in my opinion, it is) 
as small as I can. . . . The last few days have passed 
like a dream to me, and I am so much bewildered by 
it all that 1 know hardly how to write, but I do feel 
very happy. . . . Lord Melbourne, whom I have of 
course consulted about the whole affair, quite approves 
my choice, and expresses great satisfaction at this 
event, which he thinks in every way highly desirable. 
Lord Melbourne has acted in this business, as he has 

1 Heaven opens on the ravished eye, 
The heart is all entranced in bliss. 

Schiller : Song of the Bell. 



68 VICTORIA. 

always done towards me, with the greatest kindness 
and affection. We also think it better, and Albert 
quite approves of it, that we should be married very 
soon after Parliament meets, about the beginning of 
February. " 

King Leopold's answer applied to himself the words 
of old Simeon, "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant 
depart in peace. " The dearest wish of his heart was 
as good as accomplished. 

The Prince avowed his engagement to his grand- 
mother, the Dowager Duchess of Gotha, in these 
words : " The Queen sent for me alone to her room a 
few days ago, and declared to me in a genuine out- 
burst of love and affection that I had gained her 
whole heart, and would make her intensely happy if I 
would make the sacrifice of sharing her life with her, 
for she said she looked on it as a sacrifice ; the only 
thing that troubled her was that she did not think she 
was worthy of me. The joyous openness of manner 
in which she told me this quite enchanted me, and I 
was quite carried away by it. She is really most 
good and amiable, and I am quite sure Heaven has 
not given me into evil hands, and that we shall be 
happy together. Since that moment Victoria does 
whatever she fancies I should wish or like, and we 
talk together a great deal about our future life, which 
she promises me to make as happy as possible." In 
these letters one feels that her tone is more generous 
than his. The Queen's letters, then in the first blush 
of love, and always wherever her husband is con- 
cerned, breathe the spirit of Elsa's self-dedication, 
" Dir geb' ich Alles, was ich brie ! " 

She had then, and preserved to the end of their 
happy life together, unbounded belief in him and 
pride in him. To her he was the most beautiful, the 
wisest and best of human beings. He was always to 



LOVE AND POLITICS. 69 

her "my precious Albert," "my incomparable Albert," 
" my beloved Albert, looking so handsome in his uni- 
form. " Sometimes, even in very happy marriages, 
the King of the fireside has to descend from his throne 
when the babies arrive ; the wife becomes less the wife 
and more che mother. This was never so in the case 
of the Queen ; her husband was always first and fore- 
most in her heart. She wrote after many years of 
marriage, during one of the Prince Consort's short 
absences from home, "You cannot think how much 
this costs me, nor how completely forlorn I am and 
feel when he is away, or how I count the hours till he 
returns. All the numerous children are as nothing 
to me when he is away. It seems as if the whole life 
of the house and home were gone." King Leopold 
had read her rightly, when he wrote immediately 
after her engagement, that she was one to whom a 
happy home life was in a special degree indispensable. 
The cares and anxieties of her political duties made 
it more necessary for her happiness than even for 
that of most women, to have her home hallowed by 
the sympathy, support, advice, and affection of the 
husband who never ceased to be her lover. 

Most women can sympathize with what the Queen 
must have felt when she had to announce to her 
Council her intended marriage. This took place on 
November 23d 1839. There was a large attendance, 
eighty Councillors being present. Greville describes 
the scene in his usual graphic manner : " The folding- 
doors were thrown open, and the Queen came in, 
attired in a plain morning gown, but wearing a 
bracelet containing Prince Albert's picture. She read 
the declaration in a clear, sonorous, sweet-toned voice, 
but her hands trembled so excessively that I wonder 
she was able to read the paper which she held. Lord 
Lansdowne made a little speech, asking her permis- 



70 VICTORIA. 

sion to have the declaration made public. She bowed 
assent, placed the paper in his hands, and then 
retired. " ^ 

The Queen describes the same scene in her Journal ; 
it will be seen she confirms Greville in every particu- 
lar. "Precisely at two,'* the Queen writes, "I went 
in; the room was full, but I hardly knew who was 
there. Lord Melbourne I saw looking kindly at me, 
with tears in his eyes, but he was not near me. I 
then read my short declaration. I felt my hands 
shake, but I did not make one mistake. I felt most 
happy and thankful when it was over. Lord Lans- 
downe then rose, and in the name of the Privy Council 
asked that this most gracious and most welcome com- 
munication might be printed. I then left the room, 
the whole thing not lasting above two or three 
minutes." She adds that the Prince's picture in her 
bracelet "seemed to give me courage at the Council." 
The Prince, with the Queen's entire approval, deter- 
mined to take no English title, thinking that bearing 
his own name would more distinctly mark his indi- 
viduality and independence. At this time he felt, as 
he expressed it in one of his family letters, that 
whatever changes were in store for him, he should 
always remain "a true German, a true Coburg and 
Gotha man." However sincere and natural this feel- 
ing may have been, he learned later thoroughly to 
identify himself with the country of his adoption, and 
that the true realization of his personality lay in 
sinking his own individual existence in that of his 
wife. 

1 Greville Memoirs, vol. i., 2d series, p. 247. 



CHAPTER Y. 

ROCKS AHEAD. 

The proverbial troubles that mar the course of true 
love were not realized in the case of the Queen and 
Prince Consort, at least so far as their personal rela- 
tions were concerned. But there were some difficul- 
ties and annoyances in store for them from outside 
influences. A foolish attempt was made to circulate 
the report that the Prince was a Roman Catholic. 
When the announcement of the Queen's intended 
marriage was made to Parliament, it contained no 
reference to the Prince's religious faith, and the omis- 
sion was severely commented on in both Houses. The 
Queen thought her subjects were as well informed as 
she was herself upon the history of the House of 
Coburg, and believed that the attachment of the 
Prince's family to the principles of the Reformation 
was notorious. In the susceptible state of the public 
mind at that time, and in the light of current events, 
it was perhaps an error of judgment not to mention 
the Prince's Protestantism in the announcement of 
the marriage. Even when it was demonstrated that 
the Prince was Protestant to the backbone, the Minis- 
try were soundly accused of suppressing all mention 
of the fact in order to retain the support of the Irish 
Roman Catholic members in the House of Commons. 
The Whig Government was tottering to its fall, and 
Lady Holland's witty description of the political 
situation was that in the coming appeal to the country 
they had "nothing to rely on but the Queen and 
Paddy." Even the Duke of Wellington, who usually 



72 VICTORIA. 

kept his head when other people lost theirs, moved 
and carried an amendment in the House of Lords to 
insert the word " Protestant " in the address in reply 
to the Queen's speech announcing her intended mar- 
riage, "thus showing the public," he said, "that this 
was still a Protestant State. " 

This little outbreak was only a temporary vexation ; 
but there appeared to be serious cause for alarm in 
another quarter. There was, about 1839, a remark- 
able oubtreak of real disloyalty in the Tory party ; it 
arose partly, no doubt, from the Queen's known sym- 
pathy with the Whigs ; bat one cannot help suspecting 
that it was augmented by the elements of social cor- 
ruption which had flourished in the atmosphere of the 
two previous reigns. When Prince Albert's household 
were being selected, the only conditions which he 
insisted on were that it should not be formed exclu- 
sively of one party, and that it should consist of men 
of rank, "well educated and of high character." 
This limited the range of choice, more perhaps than 
the young Prince was aware of, and did not increase 
his popularity among those who were excluded. 

A non-gambling, non-drinking, pure-hearted, and 
clean-living young couple would have against them 
much that had enjoyed the sunshine of Court favor 
under the son of George III. The hounds of the 
" Great Goddess Lubricity " were in full cry against 
the Court. The undeserved humiliation suffered by 
poor Lady Flora Hastings gave them an advantage 
they were not slow to make the most of; it gave them 
the cover they run best in. 

Added to this source of unpopularity which had in 
it nothing of a party character, there was another of a 
strictly party nature. The Bedchamber question, the 
Queen's dislike of Peel, and her desire to keep Lord 
Melbourne in office, still further aggravated the situa- 



ROCKS AHEAD. 73 

tion, and, towards the end of 1839, Tory members of 
Parliament broke out into speeches containing violent 
personal attacks upon the Queen. One of these, 
" Victorippicks,^^ delivered at a Conservative dinner 
at Canterbury, Greville describes as "violent and 
indecent, " " a tissue of folly and impei^tinence ; " it 
was, however, received by the assembled company 
with shouts of applause. The chief offender on this 
occasion, Mr. Bradshaw, was called out by Mr. 
Horsman, a strong Whig and M. P. for Cockermouth; 
but matters were made worse, as far as the Tory party 
were concerned, by the fact that Bradshaw 's second 
was Colonel Gurwood, the confidential friend and 
secretary of the Duke of Wellington. Another strik- 
ing manifestation of Tory disloyalty was given about 
the same time at Shrewsbury, when at a public dinner 
the company present refused to drink the health of the 
newly appointed Lord Lieutenant because he was the 
husband of one of the Ladies of the Bedchamber, 
the Duchess of Sutherland, with whom the Queen had 
refused to part when Sir Robert Peel was endeavoring 
to form a Government in 1839. Stockmar, Greville, 
and other observers of the current of English politics 
marked with alarm the decay of loyalty in the party 
whose traditional principles led them in an exactly 
contrary direction. 

These fears were augmented by events in the House 
of Lords and House of Commons, relating to Prince 
Albert's position and establishment. In the House 
of Commons, Lord John Russell proposed on the part 
of the Government an allowance from Parliament for 
Prince Albert of .£50,000 a year. This was the sum 
which had been voted for Prince Leopold on his mar- 
riage with Princess Charlotte. Prince George of 
Denmark, husband of Queen Anne, had enjoyed this 
income, and the same sum had been voted for a sue- 



74 VICTORIA. 

cession of Queens Consort. It seems to have been 
overlooked that the circumstances of the present case 
were not quite parallel to these. The Civil List had 
been readjusted at the beginning of the Queen's reign, 
not in the direction of increasing it, but on a scale 
that was believed not only to be ample, but to allow 
an ample margin for all contingencies ; in Prince 
Albert's case no separate establishment would be 
needed, and only a very moderate household. More- 
over, even if no account were taken of the exceptional 
commercial distress prevailing at the time,^ the Min- 
istry would have done well to realize that the time 
had gone by when the passing of huge sums for the 
Royal Family would go through as a matter of course. 
But the Government did not take heed of any of these 
things, nor did they take the precaution of consulting 
the leaders of opposition as to their view on the 
matter; on the contrary, Lord John Russell insisted 
on going on even when he knew he would be beaten, 
and irritated the Tory party by taunting them with 
disloyalty. When the vote of X 50, 000 was proposed, 
Mr. Hume moved to reduce to X 21, 000. This was 
negatived, but an amendment by Colonel Sibthorpe to 
reduce the vote to X 30, 000 was supported by Sir 
Robert Peel and other leading members of the Tory 
party, and carried by 262 to 158. It was not a strictly 
party division, for the majority was composed in part 
of Whigs and Radicals, as well as Tories. Still it 
was anticipated that the division would set the Prince 
against the Tory party. This, however, was not the 
case. His vexation on hearing of the vote was based 
on the fear that it indicated that his marriage with 
the Queen was unpopular in England, and when he 

1 In 1840 wheat was 81s. a quarter; wages were low, and trade de- 
pressed ; the revenue was steadily falling ; deficits were chronic ; and 
Chartist riots were common occurrences. 



ROCKS AHEAD. 75 

learned that this was not the case, he did not allow 
the matter to disturb him in any way, although, as 
will be seen later, he did not forget it. It will be 
seen that the fact that Sir Robert Peel had taken a 
prominent part in reducing the vote did not prejudice 
the Prince against that statesman. When the time 
came, eighteen months later, that Peel was called on 
again to form a Cabinet, he was rather uncomfortable 
in meeting the Prince. But he found not a single 
trace of any personal soreness in his demeanor. " On 
the contrary, his communications were of that frank 
and cordial character which at once placed the Min- 
ister at his ease, and made him feel assured that not 
only was no grudge entertained, but that he might 
count henceforward on being treated as a friend." 

The curious in such matters will here note a parallel 
between the foundation of the Queen's esteem for 
Melbourne (page 53) and the Prince's esteem for Peel. 

The Queen was much more seriously annoyed by 
what took place in the House of Lords on the question 
of the Prince's precedence. This is one of the matters 
in which it is impossible for the masses to understand 
the classes. It is like the pea and the real princess 
in Andersen's tale. Either you feel it or you do not 
feel it; but if you do not feel it, you are not a real 
princess. Questions of precedence appear absolutely 
unimportant to those who are not born with a natural 
gift for thinking them important. The Duke of 
Wellington, even though he was an aristocrat by 
birth, never acquired the power of grasping the enor- 
mous importance of precedence and etiquette. When 
the Earl of Albemarle, who, as Master of the Horse, 
was extremely sensitive about his right of riding in 
the Queen's carriage on State occasions, made himself 
rather troublesome on the subject, the Duke, who was 
appealed to, said : " The Queen can make Lord Albe- 



76 VICTORIA. 

marie sit at the top of the coach, or under the coach, 
behind the coach, or wherever else Her Majesty 
pleases." The Bill for the Prince's naturalization 
contained a clause enabling the Queen to give him 
precedence over all other members of the Royal 
Family. The King of Hanover furiously raged, to- 
gether with some of his Royal brothers. Objections 
were raised in the House of Lords. The Duke of 
Wellington thought it was unnecessary to settle the 
Prince's precedence by law, and that the Queen could 
settle it by placing the Prince next herself on all 
occasions. This common=sense view would have been 
sufficient for ordinary people; but the fact that the 
House of Lords allowed the precedence clauses of the 
Naturalization Bill to drop seems to have caused no 
little trouble and annoyance. The Queen has added 
a note to the "Life of the Prince Consort," in which 
she says : " When I was first married, we had much 
difficulty on this subject, much bad feeling was shown ; 
several members of the Royal Family showed bad 
grace in giving precedence to the Prince, and the late 
King of Hanover positively resisted doing so." The 
law of England has provided for the precedence of a 
Queen Consort, placing her above all other subjects, 
and giving her rank and dignity next her husband; 
moreover, relieving her of the legal disabilities of 
d(, feme-covert ; but the law takes no cognizance of the 
possible existence of a husband of a Queen Regnant. 
As far as his legal position was concerned, the Queen's 
husband had no rank except what belonged to him as 
second son of the Duke of Coburg. Greville looked 
up the authorities, and wrote a pamphlet on the sub- 
ject, urging that the husband of the Queen ought to 
have precedence over all other persons. He thought 
the Tory party had made a serious mistake in the line 
they had taken in the matter. It was calculated, he 



ROCKS AHEAD. 11 

said, to accentuate the Queen's dislike of them as a 
party, and he also felt that it was ungracious to give 
the Prince so uncordial a reception. It will render 
him, he said, "as ironical to them [the Tories] as she 
is already." In this prediction events proved him to 
have been mistaken. Both the Queen and the Prince 
were hurt at what had taken place, but neither of 
them was imbittered. He first heard of the cutting 
down of his annuity in the House of Commons, and 
the lapsing of the Precedence Clauses in the Lords 
accidentally on taking up a newspaper at Aix, where 
he stopped for a few hours on his way to England for 
his marriage. "We came upon it," he wrote to the 
Queen, February 1st, 1840, " in a newspaper at Aix, 
where we dined. In the House of Lords, too, people 
have made themselves needlessly disagreeable. All I 
have time to say is, that, while I possess your love, 
they cannot make me unhappy. " 

The events just narrated received an importance 
they did not in themselves deserve, from the fact that 
they showed a weakening and disintegration of the 
monarchical principle in the party most bound by 
their professions to maintain it. Revolutionary doc- 
trines were almost everywhere making way; a few 
years later, in 1848, they shook almost every throne 
in Europe. Aided by the experience and foresight of 
their friend and mentor, Baron Stockmar, the young 
Queen and her husband set themselves definitely, con- 
sciously, and earnestly to the task of strengthening 
the hold of the monarchy by basing it on the affec- 
tions of the people, and also by making the crown a 
real power, above all party, seeking only to increase 
the welfare of the masses of the people, and uphold the 
power and dignity of the Empire. This object is 
expressed over and over again in the numerous letters 
and memoranda which passed between the Prince and 



78 VICTORIA. 

Stockmar in anticipation of the marriage, and in the 
years which immediately succeeded it. The Prince 
was convinced that the dignity and stability of the 
throne could only be based on the affection and 
respect of the nation; to earn that affection and 
respect, the domestic life of the Sovereign must be 
pure and blameless; that moreover the Sovereign 
must be the partisan of no party, but have a single 
eye to the true welfare of her whole people. We 
learn incidentally not only that "Melbourne called 
this ' nonsense, ' " ^ but that he said, " This damned 
morality is sure to ruin everything. " ^ 

But this only illustrates anew that the wisdom of 
the man of the world is often mere foolishness. 

In speaking of the Queen's childhood, attention was 
drawn to the peculiarly fortunate circumstances which 
withdrew her very largely from the influences of Court 
life and gave her much of the quiet simplicity of a 
private station. If she was fortunate in her child- 
hood she was still more fortunate in her marriage; 
not only were she and her husband life-long lovers, 
but she found in him a character and will as strong 
as her own; he was a sagacious counsellor, a fearless 
critic, a far-seeing friend, strengthening her throne 
by pursuing with her the ends of a worthy ambition. 
The warning which they both received from the events 
related in this chapter may have been fortunate too, 
if they emphasized the resolve they had formed to 
strengthen the monarchy by making the throne a 
throne of justice and purity. 

1 Life of the Prince Consort, vol. i. p. 244. 

2 Memorandum by Stockmar, Life of the Prince Consort, vol. ii. p. 550. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE PRINCE. 

The Queen was married to Prince Albert with every 
possible circumstance of pomp and magnificence on 
February 10th, 1840, in the chapel of St. James's 
Palace. There was a drenching downpour of rain in 
the morning, so her subjects, although the sun shone 
later in the day, did not learn the expression " Queen's 
weather " as early as 1840. Any doubts the Prince 
may have entertained as to the popularity of the mar- 
riage with the English people were dispelled by the 
hearty reception he met with from the crowd on his 
landing at Dover, and afterwards in London. A 
letter from the Dowager Lady Lyttelton, then a Lady 
in Waiting, descriptive of the ceremony, says : " The 
Queen's look and manner were very pleasing, her eyes 
much swollen by tears, but great happiness in her 
countenance; her look of confidence and comfort at 
the Prince, when they walked away as man and wife, 
was very pleasing to see." 

Another account mentions a rather pretty incident: 
as the Prince and his bride were returning in their 
carriage to Buckingham Palace, he held her hand in 
his, but in such a way as to leave the wedding-ring 
visible to the assembled crowd. 

The good effects of the Queen's marriage soon began 
to make themselves felt. The Duchess of Kent had 
been, almost immediately after the accession, not 
without the pang of feeling that her occupation was 
gone, and that the child to whom she had devoted 
herself unceasingly for eighteen years was taken from 



80 VICTORIA. 

her ; the Queen was surrounded by councillors not of 
her choosing, and was sailing away to regions of 
thought and activity where she could not follow. Her 
daughter's marriage and her son-in-law's thoughtful 
kindness did much to soothe these feelings and restore 
happiness and satisfaction to her heart. 

The Prince quickly made a favorable impression 
upon those with whom he was brought in contact. 
The most penetrating observer could detect in him no 
trace of coldness or resentment towards those who 
had taken an active part in the events detailed in the 
last chapter. He was particularly courteous to the 
Duke of Wellington, who was charmed by him, and 
said he had never seen better manners. 

Although he bore the rebuffs referred to with per- 
fect good breeding, he did not forget them. Fourteen 
years later, after he had been on terms of the closest 
intimacy and friendship both with the Duke and Peel, 
he brought up the subject in a letter to Stockmar on 
the probable causes of an outbreak of hostility against 
himself, which was very noticeable in 1854. After 
enumerating the causes of his unpopularity with the 
Protectionists and the Horse Guards, he adds: — 

" Now, however, I come to that important suhstratum of the people, 
in which these calumnies were certain to have a great effect. A very 
considerable portion of the nation had never given itself the trouble to 
consider what really is the position of the husband of a Queen Eegnant. 
When I first came over here I was met by this want of knowledge and 
unwillingness to give a thought to the position of this luckless person- 
age. Peel cut down my income, Wellington refused me my rank, the 
Royal Family cried out against the foreign interloper, the Whigs in 
office were only inclined to concede to me just as much space as I could 
stand upon. The Constitution is silent as to the Consort of the Queen, 
even Blackstone ignores him, and yet there he was, and not to be done 
without." 

There can be no doubt as to the difficulties of his 
position : the least indiscretion, the least appearance 
of the usurpation of an authority he did not legally 



THE PRINCE. 81 

possess, would have been both exaggerated and bitterly 
resented. He was emphatically the wife's husband, 
a position which, it appears, requires more than an 
average share of magnanimity for a man to occupy 
with dignity and ease. His position was one very 
frequently occupied by a woman, but very rarely by a 
man. A bishop's wife, for instance, may be a Mrs. 
Proud ie, and goad the most gentle of human beings 
into insult and revolt by her arrogant assumption of 
power; or she may be her husband's helper and confi- 
dential adviser, and his right hand in all his work, 
making friends and winning over enemies in all direc- 
tions ; to do this needs a good heart, good sense, and 
tact. These qualities stood the Prince in good stead ; 
he was, moreover, strengthened by the aim which he 
had ever before him, of establishing the English 
monarchy on a foundation so firm that the coming 
storms of revolution would be unable to shake it. 

Politically his position was analogous to that of the 
Queen's private secretary. Previous Sovereigns had 
had private secretaries of their own appointment, and 
the Queen had an absolute right to appoint whom she 
chose. It was for her happiness and also for the 
good of the nation that she chose her husband, who 
was also her bosom friend ; no one else could have 
discharged the duties of the post with so much 
efficiency. 

His firmness, resolution, and self-control would 
have been remarkable at any age, but they were espe- 
cially notable in so young a man. It must not be 
forgotten that at the time of his marriage he was six 
months under twenty-one. A question arose whether, 
being under age, he could be sworn to the Privy 
Council. But boy as he was in years, he showed a 
firmness of character, a grasp of the principles which 
should rule his conduct, and a persistence in follow- 

6 



82 VICTORIA. 

ing them which could not have been excelled at 
any age. It was a time, perhaps, when age was less 
afraid of youth than it is at present. Delane became 
editor of The Times at four-and-twenty. It is only 
by persistent effort that we can bring ourselves to 
believe that two generations earlier Pitt was really 
Leader of the House of Commons and Chancellor of 
the Exchequer, and had declined to be Prime Minister 
at three-and-twenty, and became Prime Minister at 
five-and-twenty, and held the post uninterruptedly and 
with unparalleled power for the next eighteen years. 
This miracle has been explained by saying that Pitt was 
phenomenal ; his tutor called him " Mr. Pitt " when 
he was seven — he was born old ; he did not acquire 
caution and judgment, as other people do, with years ; 
he was gifted with them from his cradle. People 
have sometimes asked themselves whether Prince 
Albert was not " born old " too. It is true we are told 
that he had a great fund of drollery in his nature, and 
a considerable power of mimicry and a turn for draw- 
ing caricatures ; we also hear of one thoroughly boyish 
prank which he played in 1839, on the very eve of his 
engagement — stooping in his travelling carriage when 
it stopped to change horses in a little village, so that 
the inhabitants who had assembled to see the Prince, 
saw nothing but his greyhound, Eos, looking out of 
the window. This is exactly what any boy might do; 
but he was on the eve of a crisis in his life which 
caused all boyishness to be put away. Just as under 
the weight of a solemn purpose Hamlet disencumbers 
himself of all the " trivial fond records " of his youth, 
that 

" My commandment all alone shall live 
Within the book and volume of my brain, 
Unmixed with baser matter," 

so the Prince, under the immense responsibilities of 
his position and his sense of the difficulty of discharg- 



THE PRINCE. 83 

ing them, acquired in one stride, as it were, the 
qualities which most men arrive at, if they reach them 
at all, only after years of experience and effort. 

Reference has already been made to his convictions 
upon the necessity of preserving the purity of the 
young Queen's Court. This was no effort to himself 
personally, for he was one of the natures horn with a 
strong preference for whatsoever things are pure. 
But in the light of the scandals of former reigns, he 
knew the importance, not only of being free from 
taint, but of preventing the invention and circulation 
of scandalous stories relating to himself and his asso- 
ciates. His first request about the gentlemen selected 
to form his household was that they should be men of 
good character. He and the Queen always stipulated 
for this in regard to those household appointments 
which were part of the political patronage of succes- 
sive Governments. We hear of this from Greville in 
his account of the filling of the household appoint- 
ments in Sir Robert Peel's Administration of 1841: 
"As to the men, she," the Queen, "had said she did 
not care who they were, provided they were of good 
character. " A side-light is thrown on the efficacy of 
this stipulation by an extract from Lord Shaftesbury's 
Journal, where we read that Peel pressed a household 
appointment on the then Lord Ashley, on the express 
ground that he must fill these places with men of 
unblemished character. Lord Ashley grimly records 

that Lord , the hero of a recent scandal, who had 

himself remarked, "Thank God, my character is too 
bad for a household place," had received a similar 
compliment from Peel. Therefore, notwithstanding 
the express wishes of the Queen and Prince, it is 
evident that the aim they had set before themselves 
was by no means easy of accomplishment. 

In order, not to protect himself, but to protect the 



84 VICTORIA. 

throne from the breath of scandal, the Prince laid 
down for himself a line of conduct which must have 
been very irksome through the degree to which it 
infringed his personal freedom. He never went any- 
where alone. He was always accompanied by his 
equerry. He felt he must not only be irreproachable, 
but be able to produce witnesses, if necessary, to 
prove that he was so. Mr. Anson, the Prince's secre- 
tary, says that it was remarked to him in 1842, "by 
a keen observer of character and by no means a good- 
natured one " (possibly Greville), " that it was most 
remarkable that the Prince should have been now 
nearly two years in his most difficult position, and 
had never given cause for one word to be said against 
him in any respect." 

The idle apprentice very often has something to say 
not altogether to the credit of the industrious appren- 
tice ; and men have to be forgiven their good qualities 
almost as often as their bad. There were not wanting 
those who were ready to say that the Prince was — if 
not a milksop — at any rate wanting in manliness ; 
and it is rather amusing to find that he did himself 
(1843) more good, as far as popularity in society was 
concerned, by proving himself a bold rider to hounds, 
in the Leicestershire country, than he had done by 
years of prudence, caution, and self-effacement. 

The difficulties of the Prince's position Avere mini- 
mized by the generous confidence and unbounded 
affection with which the Queen regarded him. He at 
once became, and remained till death parted them, 
what she herself called her "dearest Life in Life." 
She associated him with herself in all State business 
that was not strictly ceremonial. The courtiers 
quickly appreciated the significance of the fact that 
the Queen delighted to honor and elevate him. Her 
partiality for the Whigs became a thing of the past. 



THE PRINCE. 85 

She dissociated herself from party predilections. 
Politically, as well as personally, her husband came 
first, and it was " staff o' his conscience " with him 
that the Sovereign should be loyal to her Ministers to 
whatever party they might belong. Sir Robert Peel, 
who became Prime Minister in 1841, formed a very 
high opinion of the Prince's strong practical judgment 
and sagacity, and did much to encourage the active 
part which he took in all State business. Peel and 
his Foreign Secretary, Lord Aberdeen, were credited 
with being Prince Albert's tutors, in political affairs, 
and with having first introduced him into public life. 
They remarked with satisfaction how modestly he 
exercised his ever-increasing authority, and never 
gave a decided opinion without first consulting the 
Queen. By the end of the Peel Administration the 
Prince's association with the Queen in all State busi- 
ness had become definitely established. It was a 
complete partnership; the Ministers always saw the 
Queen and Prince together, and " both of them always 
said We — ' We think, or wish, to do so-and-so; what 
had we better do ? ' " <&;c. 

This union was equally close domestically and 
politically. We have already seen that to be parted 
from her husband, even for a day or two, was a serious 
trial to the Queen. The Prince went to Liverpool for 
a couple of days in 1846, and the Queen wrote to 
Stockmar in her husband's absence, "I feel very 
lonely without my dear master; and though I know 
other people are often separated for a few days, I feel 
that it could not make me get accustomed to it. . . . 
Without him everything loses its interest. ... It 
will always be a terrible pang to me to separate from 
him, even for a few days, and I pray God never to let 
me survive him. I glory in his being seen and loved. " 
The pathos of the words in the light of after events 



S6 VICTORIA. 

needs no emphasis; but no one who has loved and 
been loved as she has, should be called unhappy. It 
was also to Stockmar that the Prince confided his 
own most sacred feelings upon the priceless treasure 
his marriage had brought him. Writing to his 
trusted friend to pour out his grief on the death of his 
father, the Duke of Coburg, in 1844, the Prince says: 
"Just such is Victoria to me, who feels and shares 
my grief, and is the treasure upon which my whole 
existence rests. The relation in which we stand to 
one another leaves nothing to desire. It is a union of 
heart and soul, and is therefore noble, and in it the 
poor children shall find their cradle, so as to be able 
one day to insure a like happiness for themselves. " 

When Prince Albert's political influence first began 
to be felt, he was generally supposed to be a Tory; 
Greville repeatedly speaks of him as if he were a 
Tory; but from the wider knowledge which the publi- 
cation of his correspondence has given, it is clear 
that his mind was on many subjects far in advance of 
even the Whig statesmanship of the day ; for instance, 
he was a convinced Free Trader at the time when 
Melbourne was declaring that the repeal of the Corn 
Laws was the most insane proposal that had ever 
entered the human brain. He was ardently in favor 
of the reform of university education so as to bring 
the universities more closely into touch with the needs 
of modern life. He foresaw that German unity was 
the necessary condition of German greatness,^ and 
urged the necessity of the smaller German princes 
making the sacrifices requisite to the attainment of 

^ In this respect his political views were far in advance of those of 
his English tutors. Greville records a conversation he had in 1849 with 
Lord Aberdeen about the Prince's politics. " Aberdeen spoke much of 
the Queen and Prince, of course with great praise. He says the Prince's 
views were generally sound and wise, with one exception, which was his 
violent and incorrigible German Unionism " (Greville, vol. vi. p. 305). 



THE PRINCE. 87 

this great end, which was not achieved till nearly ten 
years after his own death. The Prince was thoroughly 
imbued with the sound principle that in politics reform 
is the best, indeed the only, safeguard against revolu- 
tion, j His mind, politically, was not unlike that of 
Sir Robert Peel, presenting a coml^ination of Liberal 
opinions with extreme caution in regard to the time 
and method of giving effect to them. 

His opinions on matters bearing on religion were 
wholly free from narrowness and bigotry. He pre- 
sented an example of that deepening, softening, and 
strengthening of character which modern writers have 
described as the special fruit of the Reformation 
among those peoples which have really assimilated 
its principles.^ His deeply religious nature was 
apparent from very early years ; in December, 1839, 
he wrote from Coburg to the Queen that he was about 
to take the Sacrament, and he adds : " God will not 
take it amiss, if in that serious act, even at the altar, 
I think of you ; for I will pray to Him for you, and 
for your soul's health, and He will not refuse us His 
blessing. " All through the married life of the Queen 
and Prince, it was their custom when they received 
the Sacrament to reserve the day for quietude and 
privacy. His sympathies in Church matters were 
decidedly with the party which has since been called 
"Broad." His influence was always exercised in 
support of religious toleration. 

In this, as in other matters, the husband and wife 
were in perfect accord. In later years her most 
trusted and confidential friend and adviser, among 
Churchmen, was Dean Stanley; and she fully sym- 
pathized with his interpretation of what a National 
Church ought to be. Highly as the Queen and Prince 

1 Kidd's Social Evolution, chap. x. ; Marshall's Principles of 
Economics, vol. i. pp. 34, 35. 



88 VICTORIA. 

appreciated the simplicity and dignit}^ of the services 
of the Church of Scotland, they never professed or 
practised any approach to Scottish Sabbatarianism. 
Dr. Wilberforce (afterwards Bishop of Oxford, and 
later of Winchester) had attracted the notice of the 
Prince by a powerful anti-slavery speech, and he was 
appointed one of the Royal Chaplains. Writing from 
Windsor, after preaching before the Court on Sunday, 
February 9th, 1845, he notes in his diary, " Chess 
evening, which I regret, not that my own conscience 
is offended at it one jot, but that capable of miscon- 
struction. " The views of the Bishop and the Prince 
became, as time went on, very widely divergent on 
matters relating to religion and Church government; 
but earlier in their intercourse they found many sub- 
jects in which they were in hearty accord. The 
Prince's views on the functions of the Bishops in the 
House of Lords were set forth at length in a remark- 
able letter to Dr. Wilberforce, the Dean of West- 
minster, dated 1845. His opinion was that the 
Bishops should not take part in purely political ques- 
tions, but should come forward when questions of 
humanity were at stake, such as negro emancipation, 
education, sanitation, recreation, prevention of cruelty 
to animals, and factory legislation. " As to religious 
affairs," the Prince added, "he " (the Bishop) "cannot 
but ta,ke an active part in them; but let that always 
be the part of a Chinstian, not a mere Churchman ; let 
him never forget the insufficiency of human knowl- 
edge and wisdom, and the impossibility of any man, 
or even any Church, to say, 'I am right, I alone am 
right.' Let him therefore be meek and liberal, and 
tolerant to other confessions. ... He ought to be a 
guardian of public morality. . . . He should likewise 
boldly admonish the public, even against its predomi- 
nant feeling, if this be contrary to the purest standard 



THE PRINCE. 89 

of morality. ... In this way the Bishops would 
become a powerful force in the Lords, and the country 
would feel that their presence there supplies a great 
want, and is a great protection to the people." 

A letter like this, accompanied as it was by ex- 
pressions modestly excusing himself for offering an 
opinion, is a sufficient revelation of his character, 
and of his grasp of principles. It was indeed mainly 
by his character that he was able to exercise the 
influence he did. Dr. McLeod, in speaking of him 
after his death, said: "His real strength lay most of 
all in his character, or in that which resulted from 
will and deliberate choice, springing out of a nature 
singularly pare, by God's grace, from childhood." It 
was this which gradually caused him to stand well 
with both parties, as the singleness of his aims and 
life became apparent. The feeling manifested against 
him in both Houses of Parliament before his mar- 
riage was changed after closer acquaintance to one of 
confidence. 

When it was known that the Queen was about to 
give birth to a child, a Bill naming the Prince as 
Regent, in the event of her death leaving an infant 
heir, was passed without difficulty, the only dissent- 
ing voice being that of the Duke of Sussex, who felt 
that the dignity of the Royal Family would be best 
promoted by another arrangement. The Prime Min- 
ister assured the Queen that the practical unanimity 
of Parliament in naming the Prince as Regent was 
entirely owing to his own character. " Thre.e months 
ago they would not have done it for him." 

Perhaps the smooth passage of the Regency Bill 
was promoted by another circumstance. In June, 
1840, as the Queen and Prince were driving up Con- 
stitution Hill, in a low carriage. Her Majesty was 
twice fired at by a young miscreant named Oxford; 



90 VICTORIA. 

neither shot took effect ; the Queen and Prince behaved 
with admirable courage. She ordered the carriage 
to drive at once to the Duchess of Kent, in order to 
anticipate any rumor of the attempt which might other- 
wise have reached her mother. She then continued 
her drive in the park, escorted now by an immense 
crowd on horseback and on foot, who gave the most 
vociferous expression to their feelings of devotion 
and loyalty. The Queen behaved then, as always, 
with perfect courage and self-possession, which natu- 
rally increased the mingled feelings of admiration and 
sympathy for her, and anger for the perpetrator of 
the outrage. One other thought, however, quickly 
succeeded these; it was this: If Oxford's aim had 
been well directed, and the fair young life laid low 
before she had given heirs to England, there was 
nothing between the nation and the succession of the 
Duke of Cumberland, now King of Hanover, to the 
throne of England. The knowledge of the escape 
the country had had, as well as admiration for the 
beautiful courage of the young wife, caused a great 
wave of enthusiastic loyalty to herself and her hus- 
band, and the practical result of Oxford's shot was that 
the Regency Bill passed through both Houses without 
a dissentient voice, except that of the Duke of Sussex. 
It was remarked just now that the Prince's in- 
fluence was due mainly to his character; it must not 
be inferred from this that he was not also an extremely 
able and accomplished man. As he came into close 
relations with the Queen's successive Prime Ministers, 
they one and all acknowledged the power of his intel- 
lect, the extent of his knowledge, and his grasp of 
principles. Lord Melbourne, Sir Robert Peel, Lord 
John Russell, Lord Aberdeen, Lord Derby, and Lord 
Palmerston, all formed the highest opinion of the 
Prince's capacity for statesmanship. With one of 



THE PRINCE. 91 

them, Lord Palmerston, the Prince was at one time, 
as is well known, in sharp conflict with regard to his 
conduct as Foreign Secretary, and this makes his 
testimony to the Prince's ability of all the greater 
value. In 1855, when Palmerston was Prime Minis- 
ter, one of his political friends, calling on him, 
expressed a high opinion of the ablities of Napoleon 
III. Palmerston concurred, but said: "We have a 
far greater and more extraordinary man nearer home, " 
referring to the Prince; he then added, "The Prince 
would not consider it right to have obtained the 
throne as the Emperor has done; but in regard to 
the possession of the soundest judgment, the highest 
intellect, and most exalted qualities of mind, he is 
far superior to the Emperor." 

The Priace made an equally favorable personal 
impression on statesmen of the Tory party. When 
Lord Derby was Prime Minister for ten months in 
1852, Lord Malmesbury was Foreign Secretary, and 
in that capacity was brought much in contact with 
the Queen and her husband. He wrote of the latter, 
"I never met a man so remarkable for his variety of 
information in all subjects, . . . with a great fund 
of humor quand il se deboutonne.^^ 

It was not only in statesmanship that his ability 
was shown. 1 He was a good musician, and excelled 
as a performer, especially on the organ ; Peel was not 

1 In Lady Bloomfield's Eeminiscences, she records a conversation she 
had with the Prince shortly before his death. " He said his great object 
through life had been to learn as much as possible, not with a view of 
doing much himself, — as, he observed, any branch of study or art re- 
quired a lifetime, — but simply for the sake of appreciating the works 
of others ; for, he added, without any self-consciousness or vanity, * No 
one knows the difficulties of a thing till they have tried to do it them- 
selves ; and it was with this idea that I learnt oil-painting, water-color, 
etching, fresco-painting, chalks, and lithography, and in music I studied 
the organ, pianoforte, and violin, thorough-bass, and singing'" (vol. 
ii. p. 110). 



92 VICTORIA. 

long in discovering that the Prince was an enthusi- 
astic admirer of early German art and literature. His 
interest in the arts and in industry was demonstrated 
by the Great Exhibition of 1851, which was really his 
creation. As a country gentleman he had not that 
absorbing delight in killing animals which then, per- 
haps, even more than now, was considered essential 
to his position; he appears never to have become a 
really good shot, and to have enjoyed deer-stalking 
and other sport more for the sake of the fine air and 
exercise they brought him, than with exclusive passion 
of the real sportsman. As a set-off to this, he took 
the liveliest interest in agriculture and in stock breed- 
ing, and was a frequent visitor at agricultural and 
cattle shows. He showed considerable skill as a 
landscape gardener, and the beautiful surroundings 
of Windsor were still further beautified by him, while 
the gardens of Buckingham Palace, Osborne, and 
Balmoral are, to a large extent, in their present form, 
his creation. In social matters he anticipated a good 
deal of what has been done in more recent years in 
the direction of the improvement of workmen's dwell- 
ings, and in his interest in education and sanitary 
legislation. Early in his career in England he gave 
special attention to the suppression of duelling, and 
proposed, as a substitute, the establishment of courts 
of honor in the army, where charges could be made 
and evidence heard in cases which had formerly led 
to a personal encounter. The courts of honor were 
never established; but the influence of the Prince 
undoubtedly discouraged the practice of duelling in 
England. Up to this time, it had been not at all 
uncommon, even between civilians; and there were 
few of the leading politicians in either party who had 
not been "out," at one time or another, with a 
political opponent. 



THE PRINCE. 93 

The narrative of the succeeding chapters will further 
illustrate the Prince's character and his multiform 
activities. Those who had the opportunity of know- 
ing him intimately never failed to appreciate his 
really great qualities ; but it is only since his death, 
and the publication of his private letters and memo- 
randa, that the general public have really learned to 
know him and to understand how he devoted all his 
powers to the country of his adoption. 



CHAPTER yil. 

THE QUEEN AND PEEL. 

From the time of the Queen's accession, the power of 
the Whig Government under Lord Melbourne had 
been steadily going down. It sank to zero when they 
resumed office, in 1839, after Peel had failed to form 
a Government in consequence of the dispute over the 
Ladies of the Bedchamber. They had been beaten in 
the Commons and were in a permanent minority in 
the Lords ; and it was said with justice that they were 
holding on, in office but not in power, simply to please 
the Queen. It would have been a discreditable posi- 
tion for any Government, but it was particularly 
damaging to a Whig Government from the fact that 
their party was specially identified with the prin- 
ciple of ministerial responsibility and a resistance to 
personal government. 

The result of their position was that they were 
powerless to pass their measures. They knew they 
had lost the confidence of the country, and that the 
House of Lords could therefore veto the Government 
Bills with a light heart. Perhaps this was not alto- 
gether painful to Lord Melbourne. The saying by 
which he is chiefly remembered by the present genera- 
tion, " Why can't you let it alone ? " is not indicative 
of the ardent spirit of the reformer. He may have 
found consolation in the assistance given by the House 
of Lords to letting things alone. 

Given his position and all its difficulties, Melbourne 
behaved loyally and generously to the Queen and to 
his successors. He knew the days of his own Govern- 



THE QUEEN AND PEEL. 95 

ment were numbered, and that Peel would succeed 
him, and he did his best to bring about a more cordial 
personal feeling between the Queen and Peel and the 
Tory joarty. The Queen tells us that to her his word 
constantly was, " Hold out the olive-branch to them a 
little ; " with Peel, he tried to induce the shy, proud 
man to put on a little of the courtier and the man of 
the world. At a Court ball in 1840, "Melbourne 
went up to Peel and whispered to him with the greatest 
earnestness, ' For God's sake, go and speak to the 
Queen ; ' Peel did not go, but the entreaty and the 
refusal were both characteristic." 

When the long-anticipated fall of the Melbourne 
Administration came, and the election of 1841 resulted 
in the return of the Tories to power with a majority 
of over 80, Melbourne, who had worked unceasingly 
to reconcile the Queen to the impending change, did 
not desist from his good offices with her new Minis- 
ters.^ He could not approach them directly, but he 
took the opportunity after Peel's Government had 
been formed of giving them a few hints, through 
Greville. He met Greville at a dinner-party and took 
him on one side and said : " ' Have you any means of 
speaking to these chaps ? ' I said, ' Yes, I can say 
anything to them. ' ' Well, ' he said, ' I think there 
are one or two things Peel ought to be told, and I 
wish you would tell him. Don't let him suffer any 
appointment he is going to make to be talked about, 
and don't let her hear it through anybody but him- 
self ; and whenever he does anything, or has anything 

1 This generosity was thoroughly in keeping with his character. 
After Melbourne's death, Greville tells how he occupied his room at 
Brocket, and, " poking about " to see what he could find, came upon 
several MS. books of the late Prime Minister. In one of these was 
recorded Melbourne's settled determination " always to stand by his 
friend," and his conviction that it was more necessary to do so " when 
they were in the wrong than when they were in the right." 



96 VICTORIA. 

to propose, let him explain to her clearly his reasons. 
The Queen is not conceited; she is aware there are 
many things she cannot understand, and she likes to 
have them explained to her elementarily, not at length 
and in detail, but shortly and clearly; neither does 
she like long audiences, and I never stayed with her 
a long time. These things he should attend to, and 
they will make matters go on more smoothly. ' " 
Greville conveyed the message, which was taken in 
exceedingly good part, and from 1841 onwards till 
his death the relations between Sir Robert Peel and 
the Queen were all that could be desired. Her former 
antipathy was changed into cordial respect and admira- 
tion ; when he lost his shyness and reserve, and was 
able to show himself in his real character, she soon 
appreciated the very fine qualities of the man, far 
transcending in real worth those of the Minister whom 
in the beginning of her reign she had so strongly pre- 
ferred. When Peel's Ministry had been in office a 
few months, Greville asked Sir James Graham, the 
Home Secretary, how they were going on with the 
Queen. He said, "Very well. They sought for no 
favor, and were better without it. She was very 
civil, very gracious, and even on two or three little 
occasions, she had granted favors in a way indicative 
of good will." He said that they treated her with 
profound respect and the greatest attention. He made 
it a rule to address her as he would a sensible man, 
laying all matters before her, with the reasons for the 
advice he tendered, and he thought this was the most 
legitimate as well as judicious flattery that could be 
offered to her, and such as must gratify her, and the 
more because there was no appearance of flattery in 
it, and nothing but what was right and proper — so 
right and proper that it is not easy to see where the 
flattery comes in. The way of explaining business to 



THE QUEEN AND PEEL. 97 

a sensible woman must be much the same, one would 
imagine, as the way of explaining it to a sensible 
man; but this simple view of the facts was by no 
means perceived intuitively in 1841, but was only 
arrived at by demonstration from actual experiment. 
However this may be, when Peel and his colleagues 
learned their lesson, they learned it thoroughly. In 
this second series of interviews between the Queen 
and the leaders of the Tory Party, when a new Min- 
istry was being formed in 1841, all passed off most 
satisfactorily. Peel said the Queen behaved perfectly 
to him ; he was more than satisfied with her bearing 
towards him. To the Duke of Wellington she was 
equally gracious. She reproached him for not taking 
office himself, and he assured her that his one object 
was to serve her and the country in every way he 
could, and that he thought he could do this more 
effectually by making way for some of the younger 
men. It is true that there was still some talk about 
Peel's shyness making the Queen shy; and Greville 
has a little hit about Peel, after dinner at Windsor, 
talking to the Queen in the attitude of a dancing- 
master giving a lesson, and says that the Queen would 
like him better if he would keep his legs still; but 
this gossip probably reflects Greville's sentiments 
rather than the Queen's. Her respect for Peel and 
attachment to him grew with her growing knowledge 
of his character and powers. In 1843 the Queen 
wrote of him to her uncle, the King of the Belgians, 
as " undoubtedly a great statesman, a man who thinks 
but little of party, and never of himself. " In February, 
1846, Lady Canuing, who was then in Waiting on the 
Queen, notes in her journal, " The Queen is very keen 
about politics, and has an immense admiration for 
Sir Robert Peel." 

Before the end of his Administration, she not only 

7 



98 VICTORIA. 

loyally supported liim in the face of his growing 
unpopularity with his own party, but showered every 
honor upon him that a Sovereign could bestow upon a 
Minister. She and the Prince visited him at his 
house at Drayton. She became godmother to his 
grandchild, and would have given him the Order of 
the Garter, but that Peel, with the characteristic pride 
of humility, intimated his desire that it should not 
be offered him. He said that if his acceptance of the 
honor would increase his power of serving the Queen 
he would not hesitate to accept it; but he could not 
believe this was the case. Personally, he would 
prefer not to accept it ; he was a man of the people, 
and the decoration in his case would be misapplied. 
" His heart was not set upon titles of honor or social 
distinctions. His reward lay in Her Majesty's confi- 
dence, of which by many indications she had given 
him the fullest assurance; and when he left her ser- 
vice the only distinction he coveted was that she 
should say to him, ' You have been a faithful servant, 
and have done your duty to your country and to 
me. ' " 

When Peel's Ministry came to an end in 1846, both 
the Queen and the Prince expressed the hope that his 
leaving office would not interrupt the cordial relations 
that had been established between them. His tragic 
death, from a fall from his horse, in 1850, was bitterly 
mourned in the Palace. The Queen wrote at the 
time : " Peel is to be buried to-day. The sorrow and 
grief at his death are most touching. Every one 
seems to have lost a personal friend." The Prince 
on the same day wrote to the same correspondent: 
" Sir Robert Peel is to be buried to-day. The feeling 
in the country is absolutely not to be described. We 
have lost our truest friend and trustiest counsellor, 
the throne its most valiant defender, the country its 



THE QUEEN AND PEEL. 99 

most open-minded and greatest statesman." The 
Queen offered a peerage to Lady Peel after her hus- 
band's death, but she declined the honor, acting in 
accordance with what she knew had been his wishes. 
The Duke of Wellington, in the tribute he paid to 
Peel in the House of Lords, spoke with tears stream- 
ing down his face ; the chief part of his panegyric on 
his friend and leader was based on his unswerving 
love of truth. It was this quality, together with his 
political sagacity, caution, and courage, that had 
endeared him to the Queen. No Prime Minister has 
ever had a more remarkable history. The election of 
1841 was fought on the Corn Laws, and resulted in 
the return of Peel with a majority of eighty pledged 
to Protection. In four years from that time, after a 
career of brilliant success as a Minister, he repealed 
the Corn Laws which he had been returned to sup- 
port, amid the execration of the great bulk of his own 
party and even that of a considerable number of his 
former opponents ; ^ and yet those who knew him best 
loved him chiefly for his absolute integrity and love 
of truth. The explanation lies in the hard logic of 
facts. Peel and his immediate followers became con- 
vinced they were wrong in their protective policy ; in 
ordinary times the only right thing for them to have 
done would have been to declare their change and its 
grounds, resign office and appeal to the country. 
Some of the Peelites, as they were called, took this 
course, so far as was possible, as private individuals ; 
they declared their change and resigned their seats. 
Lord Shaftesbury, then Lord Ashley, was one of these. 

1 Lord Melbourne, to whom in 1839 Kepeal of the Corn Laws had 
been " the maddest of all mad projects," and who became a Free Trader, 
for party purposes, in 1841, spoke of Peel's change of view at a dinner 
party at the Palace with vehemence which even the presence of a lady, 
and that lady his Sovereign, could not restrain. " Ma'am, it 's a damned 
dishonest act " (Greville, vol. v. p. 359). 



100 VICTORIA. 

He had been returned as a Protectionist and became 
a Free Trader, and therefore, quite rightly, resigned 
his seat, appealing to his constituents unsuccessfully 
for re-election. He notes in his diary, " I shall resign 
my seat and throw up all my beloved projects for 
which I have sacrificed everything that a public man 
values, all that I had begun and all that I have de- 
signed. Nearly my whole means of doing good will 
cease with my membership of Parliament." He re- 
fused an offer of £2,000 from the then Whip to enable 
him to fight his seat, because he would not jeopardize 
his independence. He was very poor, and he fought 
and lost. But to lose like that is to win. Why 
could not Peel have done the same ? The answer is : 
The Irish Famine. Just as the Emperor Nicholas 
during the Crimean War said that he relied most of 
all on his Generals January and February, so Peel's 
scruples were conquered by the Famine. In Ireland 
in 1845-6 there were millions of people within meas- 
urable distance of death from starvation ; the measures 
of relief could, under the best of circumstances, only 
be partially successful ; they would have been terribly 
hampered by the continuance, even for another few 
months, of the import duties on corn. The aim of 
the Corn Laws was to make bread dear; the pressing 
necessity of the moment was to make it cheap, and 
pour in food supplies to starving Ireland. Peel's 
feeling may have been, " Better endure the charge of 
dishonesty rather than add to the fearful total of those 
who will die of starvation in Kerry and Connemara." 
As the alarming accounts from Ireland came pouring 
in, his first desire was to deal with the matter by 
opening the ports by an Order in Council (November, 
1845). This would have been by far the best course ; 
it would have secured a supply of cheap bread without 
delay, and the war of words over it in Parliament 



THE QUEEN AND PEEL. 101 

could have been protracted to any extent without 
practical mischief; but his Cabinet would not agree 
to it. Then he resigned office (December, 1845), and 
left with the Queen a paper, to be given to his suc- 
cessor, stating that he would give every support to the 
new Minister to effect a settlement of the question of 
the Corn Laws. The Queen sent for Lord John 
Russell, who, however, failed to form a Government, 
because Lord Grey refused to take office if Lord 
Palmerston were at the Foreign Office, and Lord 
Palmerston refused to take any other place. Peel 
was therefore recalled. It was thus through the 
absolute necessity of the moment that he repealed the 
Corn Laws which he had been elected to support. In 
the House of Commons he confessed the error of his 
former opinions, and maintained the duty and dignity 
of owning one's self to have been wrong rather than 
pretending by casuistical hair-splitting that there had 
been no change of opinion when there was so -striking 
a change in conduct ; he bore with magnanimity the 
reproaches of those who still shared the error which 
he had abandoned, and finally appealed to the facts of 
the situation, the national calamity of impending 
famine in Ireland; he claimed that as the Govern- 
ment were responsible for the lives of millions of the 
Queen's subjects in the sister country, they felt it 
impossible to take any other course than that of repeal. 
The great bulk of the Tories accused him of dis- 
honesty, but he took with him the flower of his party, 
both in regard to intellect and character, while he 
earned the enthusiastic gratitude and respect of the 
great bulk of the nation, and of the men led by 
Cobden and Bright and the Hon. Charles Villiers, 
who had devoted themselves to the cause of repeal. 
Their favorable verdict has been confirmed by poster- 
ity. Peel's change was an honest change, and he was 



102 VICTORIA. 

forced to give effect to it when he did by the inexo- 
rable necessities of famine. He did not make a volte 
face for the sake of place and power. But notwith- 
standing all that can be urged in his justification, he 
shattered his party. The Tories had a majority of 
eighty in the general election of 1841; they never 
secured a similar victory till 1874. They had short 
tenures of office in 1852, and again in 1858-9, and in 
1866-8 ; but on each occasion they had to govern as 
best they could with a minority in the House of Com- 
mons. They were in the wilderness thirty-three years, 
and never regained the Canaan of politicians, except 
by the aid of the new electorate called into existence 
by the Reform Bill of 1867. 

When Peel went out of office he requested the 
Queen, as a personal favor to himself, never to ask 
him to form a Government again. He was not 
defeated in his great measure; his majority was 
ninety-seven in the House of Commons, and forty- 
seven in the House of Lords. But the day on which 
the Corn Bill passed its third reading in the Lords, 
the Ministry were defeated in the Commons on a 
Protection of Life in Ireland Bill, introduced on 
account of an outbreak of midnight murders and mur- 
derous attacks, such as are now known by the name of 
" moonlighting. " 

For modesty, dignity, simplicity, and sincerity. 
Peel's figure stands out conspicuous for greatness 
among the statesmen of this century. Cobden said of 
him that he had lost office and saved his country. 

His other great achievement was that of reorganiz- 
ing and simplifying the fiscal arrangements of the 
country. It was this that first so highly recommended 
him to the Queen and Prince. They were good econo- 
mists in their own private affairs, and wished for 
good order in national revenue and expenditure also. 



THE QUEEN AND PEEL. 103 

When Peel succeeded Melbourne, huge deficits were 
of constant occurrence ; the revenue was falling, and 
the expenditure was increasing. Peel evolved order 
out of this chaos. He inaugurated the era of financial 
reform. In 1845 import duties were levied on no 
fewer than 1,142 separate articles. Peel and his 
pupil and successor, Mr. Gladstone, reduced the 
number to about five, and Peel was the first to dis- 
cover the productiveness and utility of the income 
tax, as a means of raising revenue. The Queen most 
cordially supported him in his financial reforms, and 
authorized him to announce in the House of Commons 
that she did not wish to be exempted from the opera- 
tion of the income tax. We owe to him more than to 
any other of the Queen's Prime Ministers that the 
national accounts almost invariably show a balance 
on the right side. Peel was a man of whom it was 
said that it was necessary to know him intimately to 
know him at all ; and this intimate friendship existed 
between him and the Queen and her husband from the 
time he became Prime Minister, in 1841. It was an 
inestimable advantage for the Royal couple that their 
political tutor (if one may use the expression) in the 
early years of the reign was changed from the kindly 
but frivolous and complaisant Melbourne to the earnest 
and strenuous Peel, a man gifted beyond most with 
what Matthew Arnold has called "high seriousness," 
a quality without some portion of which no character 
has any solid foundation. Peel's Premiership was a 
national blessing from his political and economical 
achievements while he held the reins of pov^er; and 
it was also a blessing from its effect on the Queen's 
political education. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

STOCKMAR. 

One of the strongest influeDces, personal and political, 
in the Queen's earlier life was that of Baron Stockmar. 
This remarkable man attained, simply bj dint of 
character, the position of being one of the chief of the 
unseen political forces of Europe. Without any offi- 
cial political position, he was the friend and confidant 
of statesmen and princes, and acquired extraordinary 
influence by his clearness of view and tenacity of pur- 
pose in political concerns, joined with personal honesty 
and disinterestedness, and also in a remarkable degree 
with a singularly firm grasp of "the inexhaustibly 
fruitful truth that moral causes govern the standing 
and falling of States." 

The formative influences on his character had been 
the political misfortunes of Germany under the first 
Napoleon, in the early part of the century. As a 
youth he witnessed the bitter humiliation of his 
country, and later the downfall of her oppressor; and 
from henceforth the bed-rock of his character was the 
belief in the existence of a moral power ruling over 
the fate of nations and individuals. His son and 
biographer narrates an event which influenced Stock- 
mar deeply. During the Napoleonic tyranny in 
Germany, he formed one of a group of enthusiastic 
young Germans, some of whom broached the possi- 
bility of delivering their country by murdering her 
oppressor. An old Prussian officer who was present 
reproached the lads for their folly: "This is the 



STOCKMAR. 105 

talk," be said, "of very young people; " and he went 
on to express his firm confidence that the rule of the 
French in Germany was in its very nature evanescent, 
and must come to an end. His counsel was : " Trust 
in the natural course of events," and be ready to 
take advantage of them. Things that are rotten and 
hollow decay; those that are sound and healthy 
flourish and grow. Stockmar saw the crumbling to 
dust within a few years of what then appeared the 
overwhelming strength of Napoleon, and never forgot 
the lesson he had learned. All through his life he 
really believed what most people profess to believe, 
that the wages of sin is death. 

From this standpoint of a belief in moral causes as 
governing the standing and falling of States, he 
sought to understand the source of the political humil- 
iation of Germany, and he found it in the petty 
jealousies and childish narrow-mindedness of the 
little German States. Once convinced of this, long 
before the unity of Germany came within the sphere 
of practical politics he labored earnestly to bring it 
about. He was not slow to perceive that the arro- 
gance of Napoleon and the shame and despair of 
Germany brought with them the germ of a better state 
of things. In the first place. Napoleon reduced the 
number of small German States from something like 
three hundred to thirty. This in itself was no small 
step towards national unity. In the second place, the 
anguish and humiliation endured in common by the 
German populations animated them with a common 
purpose to throw off the yoke of their oppressor. 
This was a beginning of a new national life. As 
Stockmar expressed it, "The people had come to 
know that hitherto they had had no Fatherland ; 
and from that hour they cherished the resolve to have 



one.^^ 



106 VICTORIA. 

Stockmar never believed that bad morals could be 
good politics. It was his creed that wrong-doing 
brings with it its own inevitable retribution. Imme- 
diately after the Coup d^etat in December, 1851, he 
said that out of the elements with which its success 
had been secured, the devil only could form a stable 
Government, and that he did not believe in the possi- 
bility of a permanent rule for his black majesty. His 
biographer, writing early in 1870, remarks that it 
yet remained to be seen whether Stockmar's predic- 
tion would be fulfilled. Within a few months all 
doubt on the subject was ended by the cannon of 
Sedan and the downfall of the Second Empire. 

A character like Stockmar's, with a fixed political 
and wholly impersonal end in view, is never lacking 
in self-confidence; he never for a moment swerved 
from his aim, though after 1848 he realized that he 
would never probably live to see it accomplished. The 
fact that practical statesmen thought his dream of 
German unity under the leadership of Prussia a "bee 
in his bonnet," did not in the least disturb him. He 
went on diligently "laying the seed corn," as he 
himself described it, in other minds, quietly, almost 
secretly, knowing that once planted it would grow. 
After the downfall of the hopes of German unity in 
1848, Stockmar was not discouraged, nor would he 
allow discouragement in others. He used to say, 
"The Germans are a good people, easy to govern; 
and the German Princes who do not understand this, 
do not deserve to rule over such a people. Do not be 
frightened, for younger ones are quite unable to esti- 
mate how great is the progress which the Germans 
have made towards political unity. I have lived 
through it, and I know this people. You are march- 
ing towards a great future. You will live to see it, 
not I ; but then think of the old man. " 



STOCKMAR. 107 

Stockmar's policy was constantly directed to- 
wards : — 

1. German unity under the headship of Prussia ; 
and subsidiary to this : — 

2. A cordial understanding and alliance between 
England and Germany ; 

3. The harmonizing of democracy with the throne 
through constitutional monarchy. 

An apparent accident enabled him to obtain a place 
in the world of European politics, from which he 
could work for these ends. Born in 1787, the son of 
a lawyer in the little German town of Coburg, nothing 
could have appeared less likely than that Christian 
Friedrich Stockmar would have any weight in settling 
the affairs of nations. But having been trained for 
the medical profession, and having distinguished him- 
self for courage and organizing capacity as an army 
surgeon, he was appointed physician in the household 
of Prince Leopold on the occasion of his marriage to 
Princess Charlotte in 1816. This introduced him to 
political personages in England. From henceforth 
we have flashes from the bull's-eye lantern of Stock- 
mar's letters on the great world of English politics. 
Nothing escaped his notice, and he gives a series of 
vignettes of the Royal circle very different in tone 
from the formal adulation which often characterized 
such productions. The Mulatto countenance of the 
Queen-mother, Queen Charlotte; the hideous face of 
the Duke of Cumberland, with one eye turned quite 
out of its place ; the quiet kindliness of the Duke of 
Kent; the erect figure, with black hair simply cut, 
immense hawk's nose, tightly compressed lips, strong, 
massive under-jaw of the Duke of Wellington, with 
his easy, simple, friendly manners, and his modera- 
tion at table, are all noted ; so are Castlereagh's bad 
French and not very good English; the Grand Duke 



108 VICTORIA. 

Nicholas (afterwards the Emperor Nicholas of the 
Crimean War), "a singularly handsome, attractive 
young fellow, . . . very well mannered, with a decided 
talent for flirting. . . . When Countess Lieven played 
after dinner on the piano he kissed her hand, which 
struck the English ladies present as peculiar, but 
decidedly desirable." Those who are apt to take 
alarm at the advent of " The New Woman " will per- 
haps learn with surprise that she is not so very 
new after all. Mrs. Campbell, Lady-in-Waiting to 
Princess Charlotte, " opposes everything she sees and 
hears, and meets everything that men can say or do 
with such persistent contradiction that we can tell 
beforehand what will be her answers to our questions. 
This lady, however, professed man-hater though she 
was, thought with the rest of the women that the 
Grand Duke Nicholas was charming." Mrs. Camp- 
bell could not cease praising him. " What an amiable 
creature; he is devilish handsome. He will be the 
handsomest man in Europe," <fec. Stockmar notes 
the hoidenish manners, good heart, and strong will 
of Princess Charlotte. " Handsomer than I expected, 
with most peculiar manners, . . . laughing a great 
deal, and talking still more." He was, evidently, 
rather shocked by her want of decorum, but he noted 
with satisfaction the simplicity and good taste of her 
dress. He was devoted to his master, and predicts 
that the Princess's impressionable, generous nature 
will develop and improve under his influence and that 
of a refined and affectionate home, which the poor 
child had never known. The Princess herself said to 
Stockmar: "My mother was bad, bat she would not 
have become as bad as she was if my father had not 
been infinitely worse." Stockmar was devoted to 
Leopold, and spoke of him in a private letter as "My 
glorious master, a manly prince and a princely man. " 



STOCKMAR. 109 

Leopold, on his side, spoke of Stockmar as " the most 
valued physician of his soul and body." In the Royal 
household at Claremont he was treated by both the 
Prince and Princess as a friend, and he fulfilled the 
duties of private secretary as well as physician to his 
master. His good sense made him decline to act as 
medical adviser to Princess Charlotte. This office 
should, he felt, devolve on an English doctor. This 
may have been either fortunate for himself or unfor- 
tunate for the poor Princess, — probably the latter; as 
there are reasons to believe that he would have pre- 
scribed a rational treatment in the place of the purg- 
ing, bleeding, and general lowering of the system 
which caused her death within a few hours of the 
birth of her stillborn son. In that dark hour of the 
loss of all his hopes of domestic happiness and politi- 
cal ambition, Leopold leant on the firm devotion of 
Stockmar. He made Stockmar promise never to for- 
sake him. Kneeling at the bed where his young wife 
lay dead, Leopold said, "I am now quite desolate. 
Promise me always to stay with me." He promised. 
Again later the Prince reminded him of his promise, 
and asked him if he had considered all that it meant. 
He renewed the promise ; but even in this moment of 
supreme emotion he was not carried away, for he did 
not promise unconditionally. " I said I would never 
leave him as long as I saw that he confided in me and 
loved me, and that I could be of use to him." He 
added, in writing an account of all that had happened 
to his sister, " I did not hesitate to promise what he 
may perhaps claim forever, or, perhaps, even next 
year, may find no longer necessary to him." With- 
out building too much on his being permanently 
necessary to the Prince, he knew that he was necessary 
to him at the moment. No elder brother was ever 
more tender than Stockmar to Leopold at the time of 



110 VICTORIA, 

his bereavement. He never left him, he slept in his 
room; if the Prince woke in the night Stockmar got 
up and talked him to sleep again. He watched over 
him morally and physically, and devised remedies 
and occupations for him. He encouraged him to stay 
in England and to devote himself to the study of the 
English language and literature and constitutional 
history, and to interest himself in the social and 
political questions of the day. It is probably a uni- 
versal experience that love and service go together. 
One never loves, either human beings or causes, till 
one has done something for them. Therefore the 
more Stockmar served Leopold the more he loved 
him; and the relation between them became almost 
unique in Royal annals. 

He lived with Leopold almost continuously in Eng- 
land till 1831, when his master was chosen King of 
the Belgians; the limited monarchy of the Belgian 
Constitution was as much the work of Stockmar as 
that of the King. Stockmar returned to England as 
soon as the birth of the Belgian monarchy was safely 
accomplished, to wind up the affairs consequent on 
Leopold's relinquishment of his English annuity; and 
when this was completed he retired to Coburg, in 
1834. Stockmar had strongly advised Leopold on 
ascending the Belgian throne to give up the <£50,000 
a year which the House of Commons voted him on his 
marriage with Princess Charlotte. Leopold consented 
to do so, charging it, however, with his debts, amount- 
ing to X 83, 000, and with the keeping up of Claremont, 
the residue to be repaid to the Treasury. Greville's 
comment on this arrangement is that the odds were 
none of it would ever reach the Treasury, and that 
Leopold would be back before the debts were paid. 
However, events proved that he had underestimated 
Leopold's capacity, and the durability of the Belgian 



STOCKMAR. Ill 

monarchy. In the storms of 1848, the constitutional 
thrones of England and Belgium, both of them 
owing much to Stockmar's political genius, stood firm 
and strong when nearly every other in Europe was 
shaken. 

In 1834 it was Stockmar's purpose to retire into 
private life at Coburg; however, we soon find him 
engaged in arranging a marriage between Prince 
Ferdinand of Coburg, a cousin of Prince Albert's, and 
the Queen of Portugal ; and in May, 1837, he returned 
to England to furnish help and advice to Princess 
Victoria immediately upon her attaining her majority. 
This event took place on May 24th, 1837, and Stock- 
mar arrived at Kensington on the 25th. The King 
was even then very ill, and it was certain that the 
Princess would soon become Queen. Stockmar had 
known her intimately from her birth, and his presence 
in England was of the greatest use and assistance to 
her. George lY. and William lY. had both employed 
private secretaries. Stockmar arranged that no similar 
appointment should be made by the young Queen, 
having in mind that when the time came the proper 
private secretary would be found in the person of the 
future husband. The duties of private secretary were 
therefore divided, as had been seen, between himself, 
Lord Melbourne, and Baroness Lehzen, formerly the 
Queen's governess. 

Stockmar's chief work at this time was that of 
political tutor to the Queen. He drilled her in the 
principles of constitutional monarchy. In this he 
was not helped, but was thwarted, by Melbourne, who, 
as a strong party man, desired to enlist the Sovereign 
as a partisan of the Whigs. Stockmar's doctrine ever 
was that the Sovereign was chief, not of a faction, but 
of the whole nation ; that her moderating influence 
should be brought to bear on successive party leaders. 



112 VICTORIA. 

who from time to time might be tempted to sacrifice 
national interests to party triumphs; that for "the 
perfect working of the English constitution, the Sov- 
ereign should not only set the example of a pure and 
dignified life, but should be potential in Cabinet and 
Council, through a breadth of view, unwarped by the 
bias, and undistracted by the passions, of party, and 
also, in the case of a long reign, through the weight of 
an accumulated knowledge and experience, to which 
not even the most practised statesmen could lay 
claim." 

It is needless to say that the eighteen-year-old 
Queen did not at once appreciate this lofty view of 
her position and functions. This was reserved for a 
later period, after she had learned from some of her 
own mistakes, and when she had associated with her 
as "permanent Minister," Stockmar's other pupil, the 
Prince to whom, in 1840, she gave her hand in 
marriage. 

We know that Leopold had long ago settled who 
she Queen's husband should be ; but it is character- 
istic of Stockmar's independence that he was at first 
by no means sure that his master had made the best 
choice. He had been so much away from Coburg that 
he did not know Prince Albert intimately. Leopold 
sent him as travelling companion to the young Prince 
on his journey to Italy in 1838, but Stockmar still had 
his doubts of Prince Albert's strength and energy. 
He found in him a certain lethargy of mind, and dis- 
position to spare himself both physically and mentally ; 
a tendency to impulsiveness, without the continuous 
motive-force to carry through what he had conceived. 
He was startled to find in the future husband of the 
Queen of England an almost entire want of interest 
in politics; the Prince, in 1838, wished there was 
only one newspaper, The Augsburg Times ; and he did 



STOCKMAR. 11 



Q 



not even read that ! Stockmar also found the Prince 
lacking in ease and grace of manner. H^e admitted 
the Prince's many good qualities and great intelli- 
gence, but wrote, " All this, however, does not yet 
suffice. He must not only have great capacity, but 
true ambition and great strength of will. . . . I will 
watch him closely, and endeavor to become better 
acquainted with him. If I find that at all points 
there is sufficient stability in him, it becomes a matter 
of duty that the first step taken should be to explain 
to him all the difficulties of the undertaking. " 

It is characteristic of Stockmar that even after he 
was convinced that he had at first underestimated the 
Prince, and that it would be impossible to make a 
better choice of a husband for the Queen, he did not 
allow politics did not exclude morals ; the next step 
after a suitable education for the Prince was that he 
should win the affection of the Princess, so that the 
marriage should be founded on a stable basis of 
mutual love. 

Nothing could be more erroneous than to suppose 
that Stockmar gained his great influence with the 
Queen and Prince by judicious flattery. Affection 
and admiration he had in abundance for both of them; 
the Prince especially he came to love as a son; but 
his rule of conduct with them and with all other Royal 
personages was to speak out fully and frankly what 
was in his mind, not at all to echo what he thought 
was in theirs. He did not in this nor in other things 
act so much by instinct as by settled rule. " If you 
are consulted by princes to whom you are attached, " 
he wrote to the Belgian Minister, M. Van de Weyer, 
"give your opinion truthfully, boldly, and without 
reserve. Should your opinion not be palatable, do 
not, to please or conciliate him, deviate for a moment 
from what you think the truth." It was this absolute 

8 



114 VICTORIA. 

sincerity which gave his advice its weight and value. 
His early letters to the Prince are characterized by 
sharp criticism, such as few young men in any posi- 
tion would take in good part; and it is very much to 
the credit of the Prince that he was able to do so ; for 
instance, on leaving England in 1841, Stockmar wrote 
a long letter to the Prince, in the course of which he 
dwells on the tendency he had observed in him to be 
carried away " by impulses and predilections for men 
and things which spring from mistaken or perverted 
feeling. This tendency, which on a close self-scrutiny 
you will find to be the result either of weakness or 
vanity, should because of its very origin be most 
strenuously subdued. The same defect too often leads 
your Royal Highness, even in matters of moment, to 
rest satisfied with mere talk, where action is alone 
appropriate. It is, therefore, not merely unworthy 
of you, but extremely mischievous." 

Later, in 1847, although his affection for the Prince 
had grown greatly, and his confidence in his character 
still more, he calls him sharply to task for regarding 
the movement in German politics from a too exclu- 
sively dynastic standpoint, and also, with imperfect 
information, for expressing an opinion at all ; he tells 
the Prince that he fails, from lack of knowledge and 
dynastic prejudice, rightly to grasp and appreciate 
the actual present condition and wants of the German 
people; that the current of opinion among thinking 
people in all classes in Germany was running strongly 
towards the conviction that the chief impediments to 
German national life were the dynastic sentiments, 
the pride and self-seeking of the numerous German 
princes ; he declares that no men are so ignorant as 
the German princes of what was going on around 
them, and that their ignorance, arising from class 
prejudice, blinds them to their own true interests, 



STOCKMAR. 115 

which really lay in the direction of the development 
of political liberty among their people. He implores 
the Prince not to come out with a ready-made plan for 
the regeneration of the Fatherland, which would only 
betray his ignorance of the vital facts of the situa- 
tion, and show him to be out of harmony with the 
spirit and tendency of the age. Nothing could be 
more outspoken than the whole of the letter, which 
covers more than seven pages. of the biography of the 
Prince Consort. It shows Stockmar at his best as 
political preceptor to the Prince, and the Prince at 
his best as pupil, accepting the lecture with frankness 
and humility, and without a trace of resentment. 

It appeared from time to time that the Queen was 
extremely sensitive as to the precedence of the Prince, 
especially in relation to foreign Sovereigns, and that 
she desired to confer on her husband the title of King 
Consort. Stockmar was strongly opposed to this. 
On a report reaching him in Coburg in 1845, that the 
matter was about to be broached, he wrote to the 
Prince : " What can it be which has led to the reopen- 
ing of that report ? . . . Meanwhile on this head I 
write a word of warning and entreaty. Never abandon 
your firm, lofty, powerful, impregnable position in 
order to run after trifles. You have the substance; 
stick by it, for the good of your wife and children, 
and do not suffer yourself to be seduced even by the 
wishes of affection into bartering substance for show." 
It was not till 1857 that effect was given to the wishes 
of the Queen, and the title of Prince Consort was con- 
ferred on her husband by Letters Patent. In the 
letter from the Prince conveying this news to Stock- 
mar he remarks that for nearly nineteen years he has 
valued above all others his old friend's judgment on 
matters concerning himself, and he had the satisfac- 
tion of learning that Stockmar's objection to a change 



116 VICTORIA. 

in his title had been abandoned. Stockmar's inde- 
pendence of Court forms and ceremonies was illus- 
trated by his habit of slipping awa}^ after his numerous 
and prolonged visits to the Queen and her husband, 
without telling any one he was going or bidding fare- 
well to his Royal hosts. They would come to his 
rooms to find him gone. The same disposition was 
also shown towards the close of his life by his entirely 
ceasing to reply to the Prince Consort's constant 
letters. Stockmar, though not by any means very 
old, had many of the infirmities of age, and was dis- 
inclined to write ; therefore he did not write, though 
the Prince frequently begs quite pathetically for " one 
little line." 

In the earlier years of the Queen's married life 
Stockmar watched her development and that of her hus- 
band with eyes partly parental and partly pedagogic. 
He wrote to Bunsen in 1847 : — 

"The Prince has made great strides of late. . . . Place weighty 
reasons before him, and at once he takes a just and rational view, be the 
subject what it may. . . . He will now and then run against a post and 
bruise his shins, but a man cannot become an experienced soldier with- 
out having been in battle and getting a few blows. . . . His temper is 
thoroughly free from passion, and he has so keen and sure an eye that 
he is not likely to lose his way and fall into mistakes. His mind becomes 
every day more active, and he devotes the greater part of his time to 
business, without a murmur. The relations between husband and wife 
are all one could desire. The Queen also improves greatly. She gains 
daily in judgment and experience. The candor, truthfulness, honesty, 
and fairness with which she judges of men and things are really delight- 
ful, and the impartial self-knowledge with which she speaks of herself 
is thoroughly charming." 

It was Stockmar's habit, rarely departed from 
between 1840 to 1856, to spend the winter months of 
each year with the Queen and Prince, and the rest of 
the year with his own family in Coburg. His politi- 
cal activity and interests were vigilantly kept up from 
his own home, but he compares the outlook on politics 



STOCKMAR. 117 

in Coburg and London with strong preference for the 
latter. London, he says, is a high watch-tower, from 
which he could command the whole of Europe, and 
Coburg, "a little hole in an old stove." 

He was equally at home in organizing a nursery 
establishment for the Queen and Prince, in directing 
the religious and general education of the Royal 
children, in planning and carrying out extensive 
reforms in the Royal household, in setting the private 
financial affairs of the Sovereign on a sound footing, 
and in far-reaching schemes of political development. 
He often combined the domestic with the political in 
a manner that was almost feminine. His chief politi- 
cal object in life was the unity of Germany under the 
leadership of Prussia, and secondary to this, the 
development of a good understanding between Eng- 
land and Prussia, and the spread of Constitutional 
monarchy all over the Continent. It was indirectly 
to serve all these ends that he strongly advised, on 
the birth of the Prince of Wales, that the King, 
Frederick William lY., of Prussia should be invited 
to England to be godfather to the young heir. The 
King of Hanover, we learn, was furious at this. But 
Stockmar hoped that the visit of the King of Prussia 
would promote friendly personal relations between 
the two Royal Houses ; it is probable that he already 
had his eye on the little Princess Royal as the future 
bride of Prince Frederick William of Prussia; he also 
expected that the King of Prussia would be favorably 
impressed by the free political institutions of England, 
and become less averse to their establishment in his 
own country. Stockmar's method of recommending 
Constitutional government to foreign princes was to 
use every suitable opportunity for having them invited 
to the English Court, so that the advantages of free 
institutions might insensibly commend themselves by 



118 VICTORIA. 

way of object lessons. Palmerston was also a great 
admirer of the free institutions of his country; but 
his way of recommending them to foreign govern- 
ments was to write despatches from the Foreign Office 
in London to the English ambassadors in various 
capitals of Europe, with instructions that these docu- 
ments were to be communicated to the respective 
governments to which the ambassadors were accred- 
ited, to say how vastly superior the English system of 
government was to that pursued by the benighted 
foreigner. To have the same end in view and to 
pursue it by diametrically opposite methods is an 
almost certain receipt for personal animosity ; and it 
is not too much to say that Stockmar and Palmerston 
were actively hostile to each other all through the 
former's participation in English political life. Yet 
Palmerston, along with other English statesmen, 
cordially acknowledged Stockmar's absolute honesty 
and disinterestedness, and also his great political 
capacity. Palmerston spoke of Stockmar to Bunsen 
as the only perfectly disinterested character he had 
ever met with in the political world; and again on 
another occasion he said Stockmar had one of the best 
political heads he had ever met with. Stockmar did 
not return the compliment. He could not forgive 
Palmerston for pursuing good ends by wrong methods ; 
he accused him of a narrow insularity, of being flip- 
pant and obstinate at the same time ; one good quality 
he allowed him, — that he was not a Frenchman. The 
antagonism between these two opposing forces in the 
great world of politics had an important bearing on 
the personal history of the Queen and her husband, 
which will be the subject of a future chapter. 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE NURSERY. 

The courage of the Queen on the occasion of the 
attempt by Oxford upon her life was enhanced by the 
fact that it took place a few months before the birth 
of her first child. The Queen's natural courage was 
perhaps fostered on this and other occasions by her 
having so much to do and to think of besides her own 
personal concerns. During the months when she was 
awaiting the birth of her first child, she was up to the 
eyes in politics. In 1840 there was a premonitory 
rumbling of the storm in the East, which has so fre- 
quently broken the rest of Europe. France was frac- 
tious, and imagined herself slighted by England, and 
in the summer and autumn of 1840 it looked several 
times as if the two countries were on the brink of 
war. The Queen, writing to her uncle, the King of 
the Belgians, said: "I think our child ought to have, 
besides its other names, those of Turco-Egypto, as we 
think of nothing else." If it were true that home 
duties and political duties were incompatible, the 
Royal children would have had a sadly-neglected 
childhood ; but it is a matter of experience that busy 
people are usually those who find time for everything, 
and the Queen and her husband were no exception to 
the rule. There is probably not a mother in England 
who has given more loving thought and care for her 
children's welfare than Her Majesty has done. The 
children and her love for and pride in them are 
constantly mentioned in the Queen's Journals. In 
the letters from Princess Alice to the Queen, pub- 



120 VICTORIA. 

lished as a memorial of the former, she repeatedly 
refers to her happy childhood and her desire to pass 
on a similar training to her own little flock. Under 
the date of January 1st, 1865, Princess Alice writes 
to her mother: *' All the morning I was telling Louis " 
(her husband) "how it used to be at home, and how 
we all assembled outside your dressing-room door to 
scream in chorus ' Prosit Neujahr, ' and to give to you 
and papa our drawings, writings, &c., the busy occu- 
pation of previous weeks. . . . Dear papa bit his lip 
so as not to laugh." 

The Princess Royal, now the Empress Frederick of 
Germany, was born at Buckingham Palace on Novem- 
ber 21st, 1840. Prince Albert was then having a 
course of reading in English law with Mr. Selwyn; 
the tutor arrived on November 23d to continue his 
instructions. The Prince said : " I fear I cannot read 
any law to-day. . . . But you will like to see the 
little Princess. " He took the lawyer into the nursery, 
and, taking the little hand of the infant in his own, 
said, " The next time we read it must be on the rights 
and duties of a Princess Royal. " The Queen made 
an excellent recovery; then, as always, the Prince 
was her tender guardian and nurse. No one but him- 
self ever lifted her from her bed to the sofa, and he 
always helped to wheel her on her bed or sofa to the 
next room. However occupied he was, "he ever 
came," writes the Queen, "with a sweet smile on his 
face." In short, his care of her was like that of a 
mother, nor could there be a kinder, wiser, or more 
judicious nurse. 

At Christmas this year, Prince Albert naturalized 
the German custom of Christmas-trees in England; 
there is probably hardly a child in England who has 
not appreciated their introduction. 

It may be imagined that Stockmar had plenty of 



THE NURSERY. 121 

good advice to give the young parents. One of his 
wise saws was, " A man's education begins with the 
first day of his life." He undertook in the early 
years of the Queen's marriage the organization of the 
nursery department. In one of his letters he says : 
" The nursery gives me more trouble than the govern- 
ment of a kingdom would do." The Princess Royal 
was always the child nearest his heart. He had an 
immensely high opinion of her abilities. "I hold 
her," he said, "to be exceptionally gifted, even to the 
point of genius." 

Curiously enough, Melbourne was also consulted 
(1842) by the Queen and Prince upon the organiza- 
tion of the nursery, and the choice of a lady to preside 
over it. 

The Princess showed almost from the day of her 
birth a very remarkable degree of intelligence. 
Numerous anecdotes are given of her cleverness and 
droll sayings as a little girl. The refrain of most of 
the stories about the Royal children is the Princess 
Royal's intelligence, and the merry, happy, affection- 
ate disposition of the Prince of Wales. The little 
Princess was christened on the anniversary of her 
parents' marriage, February 10, 1841, and received 
the names of Victoria Adelaide Mary Louisa. Two 
days after this, the Prince had a narrow escape of a 
painful death, for, in skating on the lake in the gardens 
of Buckingham Palace, he broke through the ice into 
deep water. Fortunately the Queen, who was on the 
bank, did not lose her presence of mind, but did the 
right thing for affording the Prince the immediate 
assistance necessary. 

The birth of the Prince of Wales followed very soon 
after that of the Princess Royal. On Lord Mayor's 
Day, November 9, 1841, the Queen gave birth to her 
eldest son. Greville notes with some impatience that 



122 VICTORIA, 

the usual formalities were not observed upon this 
occasion. "From some crotchet of Prince Albert's," 
he writes, "they put off sending intelligence . . . till 
so late that several of the dignitaries whose duty it 
was to assist at the birth, arrived after the event had 
occurred, particularly the Archbishop of Canterbury 
and the Lord President of the Council." The Queen 
probably thought that this was one of the customs 
more honored in the breach than in the observance, 
and in this the majority of her subjects would agree 
with her. The Queen's Diary records that on Novem- 
ber 21, 1841, the Princess Royal's first birthday, 
" Albert brought in dearest little Pussy (the Princess 
Royal) . . . and placed her on my bed, seating him- 
self next her, and she was very dear and good. And 
as my precious invaluable Albert sat there, and our 
little love between us, I felt quite moved with happi- 
ness and gratitude to God." At Christmas time in 
this year the Queen's entry is : " To think that we 
have two children now, and one who enjoys the sight " 
(of the Christmas-trees) "already, is like a dream." 
And the Prince, writing to his father on the same 
occasion, says : " To-day I have two children of my 
own to give presents to, who, they know not why, are 
full of happy wonder at the German Christmas-tree 
and its radiant candles." 

It has been already noted how and why Stockmar 
urged the selection of the King of Prussia as one of 
the godfathers of the Prince of Wales, and that the 
King of Hanover was furious at being passed over. 
He did not easily forget it when he considered himself 
slighted, and when the Queen, very magnanimously, 
invited him to be godfather to Princess Alice in 1843, 
he vindicated his dignity by arriving too late for the 
christening. He further endeavored to balance the 
account between his niece and himself by being rude 



THE NURSERY. 123 

to her husband. Greville says that one day at Buck- 
ingham Palace he proposed to Prince Albert to take a 
walk with him in the streets. It has already been 
mentioned why the Prince never went anywhere un- 
attended, and the same reason rendered it undesirable 
that he should be unaccompanied except by the King 
of Hanover. He therefore excused himself, saying 
they would be inconvenienced by the crowd of people. 
The King replied, " Oh, never mind that. I was still 
more unpopular than you are now, and I used to walk 
about the streets with perfect impunity. " This little 
pleasantry was pointed by the fact that a feeling of 
antagonism against Prince Albert was growing up in 
certain sections of the community, which a few years 
later reached quite serious dimensions. 

It may be mentioned here that the Queen has all 
through her life shown herself remarkably free from 
feeling implacable resentment even against those 
whose conduct she has at various times most strongly 
condemned, or against whom she may have been preju- 
diced. This characteristic, which will be illustrated 
later by her relations with Lord Palmerston, Lord 
Beaconsfield, Louis Philippe, and others, was demon- 
strated now by her magnanimity to her uncle Ernest, 
King of Hanover. He had plotted against her; had 
made things uncomfortable for her mother and herself 
before her accession; had refused, what she particu- 
larly valued, to yield precedence to her husband ; had, 
in a dog-in-the-manger spirit, declined, after he became 
King of Hanover, to give up apartments in St. James's 
Palace which were wanted for the Duchess of Kent; 
in short, had lost no opportunity of showing himself 
unfriendly and disagreeable ; yet when her third child 
was born, Princess Alice, on April 25th, 1843, she 
invited this uncle, who was a personification of the 
wicked uncle of fairy tales, to be the new baby's 
godfather. 



124 VICTORIA. 

In 1844, very soon after the birth of a fourth child, 
Prince Alfred, now Duke of Coburg, the Queen and 
Prince paid a visit to Scotland, taking the Princess 
Royal with them. After this the Royal visits to 
various parts of the kingdom were rendered doubly 
interesting to the Queen's subjects by the presence of 
one or more of the blooming group of the rapidly 
growing family of children. The Prince wrote to his 
stepmother of this visit to Scotland : " Pussy's cheeks 
are on the point of bursting, they have grown so red 
and plump; she is learning Gaelic, but makes wild 
work with the names of the mountains." 

The Dowager Lady Lyttelton was appointed gov- 
erness to the Royal children. One of her letters to 
her own daughter, dated 1844, begins, "Dearest mine 
daughter, as the Prince of Wales would say." On 
the third visit to Scotland, in 1847, the two elder 
children accompanied their parents. The Queen says, 
in "Leaves from a Journal in the Highlands," "the 
children enjoy everything extremely, and bear the 
novelty and excitement wonderfully well." On this 
occasion the Royal party visited the Duke and Duchess 
of Argyll at Inverary, and the Queen writes, describ- 
ing their reception, "Outside stood the Marquis of 
Lome, just two years old, a dear, white, fat, fair little 
fellow with reddish hair, but very delicate features, 
like both his father and mother ; he is such a merry, 
independent child." This was the Queen's first sight 
of her future son-in-law. 

On Her Majesty's first visit to Ireland,"^ in 1849, 
she took her four eldest children with her (many of us 
wish she had gone before and gone oftener). She 
received an intensely enthusiastic welcome. The 

1 The Queen visited Ireland again in 1853 to open the International 
Exhibition in Dublin ; and a third time in 1 861 , when the Prince of 
Wales was going through a course of military training at the Curragh. 



THE NURSERY. 125 

sight of the Royal squadron entering the magnificent 
harbor at Kingstown, and the loyalty of the reception 
of the Queen on landing, made a deep impression. 
The Times said : — 

" It was a sight never to be forgotten, — a sound to be recollected for- 
ever. Ladies threw aside the old formnla of waving a white pocket- 
handkerchief, and cheered for their lives, while the men, pressing in so 
closely as to throng the very edges of the pavilion, waved whatever 
came first to hand, — hat, stick, wand, or coat, — and rent the air with 
shouts of joy which never ceased in energy till their Sovereign was out 
of sight. . . . The Eoyal children were objects of universal attention 
and admiration. ' Oh, Queen, dear ! ' screamed a stout old lady, ' make 
one of tliem Prince Patrick, and all Ireland will die for you.' " 

Almost every one has a sovereign remedy for Irish 
disaffection; but few are so easy of application as 
this. The Queen adopted the old lady's suggestion ; 
the child born next after the Irish visit, on the Duke 
of Wellington's birthdaj^. May 1st, 1850, was named 
Arthur after that great Irishman, and Patrick after 
Ireland's patron saint; the Irish associations of his 
name were kept up by his taking the title of Duke of 
Connaught when he reached man's estate. 

Between the birth of her second and third sons, the 
Queen had had two more daughters, the Princesses 
Helena and Louise (now Princess Christian of Schles- 
wig-Holstein and Marchioness of Lome), born respec- 
tively on May 25th, 1846, and March 18th, 1848. 
The name selected for the elder of these two new 
daughters had a double significance. She was named 
Helena, not only after her godmother, the Duchess of 
Orleans, but also to remind English people of what 
they sometimes forget, that the Empress Helena, 
mother of Constantine, tlirough whom the Roman 
Empire was brought over to Christianity, was a 
British princess, daughter of Coel, King of Camalo- 
daum (now Colchester). Prior to the birth of Princess 
Louise, the Queen had gone through a time of very 



126 VICTORIA, 

serious anxiety in regard to political affairs. The 
revolutionary movement of 1848 was at its height, 
and though England passed through it safely, yet no 
one could know at the time that it would do so, and 
especially that the Chartist movement would not 
develop in the direction of revolutionary violence. In 
the early months of this year the Queen had made 
ready all the rooms at Windsor to receive the fugitive 
Royal Family of France, who arrived one after another 
in so forlorn a condition that Her Majesty had to 
clothe as well as shelter them. The Prince's step- 
grandmother, the Dowager Duchess of Gotha, who 
had been almost a mother to him in his childhood, 
died just at this time. On every side there appeared 
trouble and misfortune in both public and private 
affairs. The Prince wrote on February 29th: — 

" What dismal times are these. . . . Augustus, Clementine, Nemours, 
and the Duchess of Montpensier, have come to us one by one like people 
shipwrecked. Victoire, Alexander, the King, the Queen, are still toss- 
ing on the "waves, or have drifted to other shores. . . . France is in 
flames; Belgium is menaced. We have a ministerial, money, and tax 
crisis ; and Victoria is on the point of being confined. My heart is 
heavy." 

It was in this depression that the courageous heart of 
the loving woman cheered and sustained that of her 
husband. As soon as she was able to write after the 
birth of the new baby, she wrote to her uncle 
Leopold : — 

" From the first I heard all that passed ; my only thoughts and talk 
were politics. But I never was calmer, quieter, or less nervous. Great 
events make me calm ; it is only trifles that irritate my nerves." 

The letter in which the Prince announced to Stock- 
mar the birth of Princess Louise contains an expres- 
sion which invites criticism; he writes: "I have good 
news for you to-day. Victoria was safely delivered 
this morning, and though it he a daughter, still my joy 



THE NURSERY. 127 

and gratitude are very great," &c. The Prince is 
only responsible for the sentiment, not for the italics ; 
but why should it be necessary to write in this way of 
the birth of a daughter even in the dark backward 
and abysm of time of 1848 ? Mr. George Meredith 
writes of one of his heroines that she had never gone 
through the various nursery exercises in dissimula- 
tion, and "had no appearance of praying forgiveness 
of men for the original sin of being a woman." But 
here we have an even more perverted sentiment than 
that presented by a woman apologizing for being a 
woman; it is black ingratitude for one of the best 
gifts God gives to man when either father or mother 
begrudges a welcome to a new baby on account of its 
sex. The Queen, we gather, did not give little girls 
a grudging welcome to this world ; on the birth of her 
first granddaughter, the Princess Charlotte of Prussia, 
in 1860, she wrote of the news that "Vicky had a 
daughter." "What joy! Children jumping about — 
every one delighted." The Prince, too, on this occa- 
sion wrote to the Princess Royal of her little daughter, 
as " a kindly gift from heaven, " and even says, " Little 
maidens are much prettier than boys. I advise her 
to model herself on her Aunt Beatrice." 

The birth of Prince Arthur, in 1850, has been 
already mentioned. He was a magnificent child, 
and the Queen took all a mother's pride in his beauty 
and his rapid growth. When Lady Canning was in 
waiting she tells us of many private visits by the 
Queen to her in her room to talk about politics and to 
show the beauty of the latest new baby ; and of Prince 
Arthur in particular she wrote on September 1st, 
1850: "The children . . . are grown very nice and 
pretty. Prince Arthur is a magnificent child, and 
the Queen is quite enchanted to find he is bigger than 
the keeper's child at Balmoral of the same age, whose 



128 VICTORIA. 

measurements she carefully brought back. He has 
the Royal look I have heard grandmamma talk about, 
which I think she said was so remarkable in the 
Queen when a baby." 

The two youngest of the Queen's nine children, 
Prince Leopold and Princess Beatrice, were born 
respectively on 7th April, 1853, and on 14th April, 
1857. The Queen's letter announcing Prince Leo- 
pold's name to her uncle has already been quoted (see 
p. 24). She said it would recall the days of her 
childhood to hear •■' Prince Leopold " again ; among 
his other names the little Prince was given that of 
Duncan, in " compliment to dear Scotland. " His deli- 
cate constitution was a source of anxiety from very 
early years. He was the only one of the flock of 
Royal children whose health was not good. It fell to 
the happy lot of the Princess Beatrice to be the special 
pet and plaything of her father during the last years 
of his life, and also, as we all know, to be the com- 
panion and solace of her mother in later years when 
all her other daughters had married and left her. 
There are numerous instances in the later volumes of 
the " Prince Consort's Life " of his delight in his 
youngest daughter, "the most amusing baby we have 
had. " He constantly wrote about her droll ways and 
sayings to his married daughter in Berlin. Thus in 
July, 1859, he wrote : " The little aunt makes daily 
strides, and is really too comical. When she tumbles 
she calls out in bewilderment, ' She don't like it, 
she don't like it I ' and she came into breakfast a 
short time ago (with her eyes full of tears) moaning, 
' Baby has been so naughty, poor baby so naughty, ' 
as one might complain of being ill, or having slept 
badly," &c. 

In the seventeen years from 1840 to 1857 the Queen 
had had nine children, all but one of good physical 



THE NURSERY. 129 

constitution, all without exception of sound mind, 
and several very markedly above the average in intel- 
lectual vigor and capacity. She herself bore the 
strain of her confinements without any permanent 
deterioration of her natural vigor. The entry in the 
"Prince Consort's Life" in reference to the Queen's 
health after the birth of her children usually is, " The 
Queen made a rapid recovery, and was able within a 
few days to report her convalescence to her uncle at 
Brussels," or, "The Queen's recovery was unusually 
rapid." Attention is drawn to these facts in order 
to controvert the view put forward by the late Mr. 
Withers Moore, Sir James Creighton Browne, and 
others, that intellectual activity on the part of women 
is to be discouraged because it is supposed to be 
incompatible with the satisfactory discharge of the 
functions of maternity. The Queen throughout the 
whole of her married life down to the present time, 
when she has considerably passed the proverbial three- 
score years and ten of the allotted span of man's 
existence, has been immersed in political work, often 
involving decisions of first-rate importance; she has 
therefore preserved her vigor of mind and power of 
work unimpaired; and it is not unfair to conclude 
that old age has come upon her " frosty but kindly, " 
partly because she never was satisfied to regard her 
maternal duties on their physical side only. A cow, 
a dog, or a lioness has the physical functions and 
passions of maternity developed in all their beauty 
and perfection ; but a human mother has to aim at 
being all that animals are to their young, and some- 
thing more ; if not, she is apt to get into the trough of 
the wave of mere animalism, and in this case her 
children will find, when they lose their babyhood, 
they lose their mother too. The Queen has always as 

a mother set the best example to her subjects in this 

9 



ISO VICTORIA. 

respect. Her motherhood has been no mere craze of 
baby worship. She has ever kept in view high aims 
for her children and grandchildren, encouraging them 
to accept nobly the responsibilities and duties of their 
position. In one of Princess Alice's letters to her 
mother, written in 1870, she replies to a letter from 
the Queen upon the bringing up of the little family at 
Darmstadt; the letter is interesting as throwing a 
light upon the Queen's own aims in the education of 
her children. The Princess writes : — 

" What you say about the education of our girls I entirely agree with, 
and I strive to bring them up totally free from pride of their position, 
which is nothing save what their personal worth can make it. I read 
it to the governess, thinking how good it would be for her to hear your 
opinion. ... I feel so entirely as you do on the difference of rank, and 
how all important it is for princes and princesses to know that they are 
nothing better or above others, save through their own merit ; and that 
they only have the double duty of living for others and being an example 
good and modest. This I hope my children will grow up to." 

We are not, however, left to infer from the Princess's 
letters what were the Queen's views on the education 
of her children ; the " Prince Consort's Life " con- 
tains several memoranda written by Her Majesty her- 
self on the subject. One of these, written in 1844, 
says : " The greatest maxim of all is — - that the chil- 
dren should be brought up as simply and in as 
domestic a way as possible ; that (not interfering with 
their lessons) they should be as much as possible with 
their parents, and learn to place their greatest confi- 
dence in them in all things." The religious training 
of the children was given, as much as circumstances 
admitted, by the Queen herself ; it was based on en- 
deavoring to implant in the children a loving trust in 
God as their Father, avoiding all extreme views, and 
not entering upon the differences of creed. Her 
Majesty does not approve of the Athanasian Creed 
forming part of the Church service, and does not 



THE NURSERY. 131 

suffer it to be read in her chapels. The Queen's 
children were not taught to dwell on the supernatural 
features of the Christian religion, but rather upon the 
pure and comprehensive morality which it teaches as 
its essential and indestructible element; they were 
taught that the conditions of belief in the former may 
and did vary in various stages of human development, 
but that the latter was the bed-rock on which the 
whole structure was founded. 

The Queen and Prince, like other parents, took the 
keenest and most intense delight in the evidence 
given from time to time that their children had gifts 
of mind which would have fitted them to excel in 
whatever position of life they had been placed. Fre- 
quent reference will be found in the following pages 
to their pride in the remarkable intellectual gifts of 
the Princess Royal, who was described while still a 
young girl as having " a statesmanlike mind. " Their 
boys were trained as carefully as if no royal road to 
distinction lay open to them. On returning from 
their first visit to their married daughter in Prussia 
in 1858, the Queen and Prince were met by the 
" delightful news that Affie " (Prince Alfred, aged 14) 
"had passed an excellent examination" (into the 
Navy) "and had received his appointment." He met 
his father and mother at the private pier at Ports- 
mouth "in his middle's jacket, cap, and dirk, half 
blushing and looking very happy. He is a little 
pulled down from these three days' hard examination, 
which only terminated to-day. . . . We felt very 
proud, as it is a particularly hard examination." 



CHAPTER X. 

HOME LIFE. — OSBORNE AND BALMORAL. 

It has already been remarked that the Queen through- 
out her reign has shown herself a thorough woman in 
being a good domestic economist. It was quite in 
accordance with this trait in her character that she 
and the Prince very early in their married life set 
themselves the almost Herculean task of the refoi-m 
of the Royal Household. They found it in thorough 
disorganization, replete with confusion, discomfort, 
and extravagance. Various branches of the domestic 
service in the palaces were under the Heads of Govern- 
ment Departments; no one was responsible for the 
order and good administration of the whole. To give 
some idea of the prevailing confusion, Stockmar's 
memorandum on the subject may be quoted where he 
points out that the Lord Chamberlain cleans the 
inside of the windows, and the Wood and Forests the 
outside. The degree of light admitted to the palace 
therefore depended on a good understanding between 
the two. Again, "The Lord Steward finds the fuel 
and lays the fire, the Lord Chamberlain lights it. 
... In the same manner the Lord Chamberlain 
provides all the lamps, and the Lord Steward must 
clean, trim, and light them." If a pane of glass in 
the scullery had to be replaced, or a broken lock 
mended, a requisition had to be signed and counter- 
signed by no fewer than five different officials before 
the expenditure was finally sanctioned by the Woods 
and Forests, or the Lord Steward, as the case might 



HOME LIFE. — OSBORNE AND BALMORAL. 133 

be. Some of the servants were under the Lord Cham- 
berlain, some under the Master of the Horse, some 
under the Lord Steward; as neither the first nor 
second of these State officials had any permanent 
representative in the palace, more than two-thirds of 
the male and female servants were left without any 
master or mistress at all. They came and went as 
they pleased, and sometimes remained absent for hours, 
or were guilty of various irregularities, and there was 
no one whose duty it was to control them. There 
was no one official responsible for the cleanliness, 
order, and security of the palace; and if the dormi- 
tories where the footmen slept, ten and twelve in a 
room, were turned into scenes of riot and drunken- 
ness, no one could help it. So little watch was kept 
over the various entrances to the palaces, that there 
was nothing to prevent people from walking in unob- 
served, and, as a matter of fact, shortly after the birth 
of the Princess Royal, a boy did walk into Bucking- 
ham Palace in this way, and was accidentally dis- 
covered at one o'clock in the morning under a sofa in 
the room adjoining the Queen's bedroom. The stupid- 
ity, disorganization, and wastefulness of the whole 
thing were boundless ; the only redeeming point was 
that there appeared to be no corruption. Her Majesty 
might find it impossible to get her dining-room 
warmed because of a coolness between the Lord Cham- 
berlain's and the Lord Steward's departments; but 
she was not called upon to pay for fuel she had never 
received, or for services that had been discontinued 
since the death of Queen Anne. Some idea of the 
scale in which the housekeeping at Windsor is con- 
ducted may be gathered from the fact that in one year 
(1842), which does not appear to have been in any way 
exceptional, as many as 113,000 people dined there, 
so that there was a magnificent scope either for waste 



134 VICTORIA. 

or economy. The reform of the Household was carried 
out on lines suggested by Stockmar, but in a manner 
thoroughly congenial with English precedent. The 
three great State officers between whom the control 
of the Household was shared, were retained, but their 
duties were delegated to one official, the Master of 
the Household, who was always to be resident at 
Court, and who was made responsible for the good 
government of the Royal establishments. It is easy 
to mention in three lines that the thing was done, but 
its actual accomplishment was by no means easy. A 
good deal of opposition was encountered from the 
heads of both political parties, as well as from those 
more directly interested in the abuses of the old system, 
and the efforts of the Queen and her husband to intro- 
duce internal economy and order into their home 
were not crowned with success short of three years' 
continuous effort, between 1841 and 1844. 

The advantages of these reforms in household man- 
agement could not but commend themselves to so 
good an economist as Sir Robert Peel. In 1844 the 
Queen had entertained at Windsor, on a scale of 
becoming magnificence, the Sovereigns of Russia and 
France ; and Peel had the satisfaction of announcing 
in the House that the Royal visits had not added one 
farthing to the burdens on the taxpayer. In former 
times, during the visit, for instance, of the Allied 
Sovereigns in 1814, the country had to pay for the 
entertainment of the Royal guests; but this was now 
changed, and the Queen provided for her Royal and 
Imperial guests out of the Civil List. 

The little glimpse that has been given of life in a 
palace, where the head of the house finds her house- 
maids under the Lord Steward, and her pages under 
the Master of the Horse, enables us to understand 
some of the satisfaction which the Queen enjoyed 



HOME LIFE.— OSBORNE AND BALMORAL. 135 

when she became possessed of country homes, one in 
the Isle of Wight, and the other in Scotland, that were 
entirely her own. When the purchase of Osborne 
was just accomplished, the Queen wrote (March 25th, 
1845) to her uncle at Brussels, " It sounds so pleasant 
to have a place of one's own, quiet and retired, and 
free from all Woods and Forests and other charming 
departments, which really are the plague of one's 
life." 

The purchase of the estate and the building of the 
house, costing something like £200,000, were met by 
the Queen without difficulty out of her income, so 
greatly had her resources been practically increased 
by good management and wise economy in the admin- 
istration of the household. In the same spirit the 
estates of the Duchy of Cornwall, the property of the 
Prince of Wales, were carefully managed for his bene- 
fit, so that a very large property from them awaited 
him as soon as he attained his majority. The Prince 
Consort's love for landscape gardening found ample 
scope both at Osborne and Balmoral. The work was 
for several years a constant source of recreation and 
delight to him. Of Osborne in particular, he felt that 
he could say that the gardens were his creation ; there 
was hardly a tree in the grounds that had not been 
placed there by him. Lady Canning wrote from 
Osborne in 1846, in one of her private letters, "You 
will be pleased to hear of this rural retreat. . . . 
Whatever it is, it perfectly enchants the Queen and 
Prince, and you never saw anything so happy as they 
are with the five babies playing round about them." 
The Royal children had at Osborne a place that was 
especially their own, a thing that all children love; 
thousands of country homes all over England have 
some Noah's Ark or Pigs' Paradise, where the boys 
and girls are masters of the situation, and may car- 



136 VICTORIA. 

penter, paint, cook, and cut their hands and burn 
their fingers without let or hindrance from nurses or 
governesses. The Royal children at Osborne had 
their Swiss Cottage. Here the boys had a forge and 
a carpenter's bench, or learnt the art of war by mak- 
ing fortifications, and the girls had little gardens and 
kitchens and rooms for their special games and pas- 
times ; there was also a Natural History museum 
which was a source of much interest and delight. 

There is another feature of the gardens at Osborne 
which should be mentioned, an immense myrtle-tree 
which was struck from a sprig of myrtle from the 
wedding bouquet of the Princess Royal ; every Royal 
bride in the Queen's family carries a piece of this 
myrtle with her to the altar on her marriage-day. 
The Queen has twice sent sprays of this myrtle as far 
as St. Petersburg, once in 1874, for the bridal bouquet 
of her daughter-in-law, the Archduchess Marie, now 
Puchess of Coburg, and once in 1894, for the bouquet 
of her granddaugher, the Princess Alix of Hesse, now 
the wife of the Czar of Russia. On the former occa- 
sion the myrtle was intrusted to the care of Lady 
Augusta Stanley, and the Queen gave her special 
instructions how to revive it in tepid water. 

Osborne was a harbor of refuge to which the Queen 
and Prince could run for a few days' rest at any time 
when they felt their strength almost exhausted from 
the constant pressure of political work and responsi- 
bility ; but they had an even more dearly loved holiday 
resort in their home in the Highlands at Balmoral. 
The Prince was always extremely sensitive to good 
air, and the smoky atmosphere of towns was peculiarly 
oppressive to him ; he used to exclaim on reaching 
the pure country air, " Now I can breathe ! Now I am 
happy ! " The fine air of Dee-side was life and breath 
to him. In addition to the benefit to their health, the 



HOME LIFE. — OSBORNE AND BALMORAL, 137 

Royal couple delighted in Scotland for other reasons, 
the chief of which was that they could enjoy there a 
degree of freedom to which they were strangers else- 
where. Highland loyalty is compatible with perfectly 
good manners, and the poor people round Balmoral 
did not demonstrate their affection for their Sovereio-n 
by staring at her as if she were a waxwork show, or 
dogging her carriage or her footsteps whenever she 
went beyond her own gates. The Highland servants 
combined perfect respect with independence of char- 
acter. The Queen delighted in them, and found real 
friends in several of them. The Royal family could 
make little incognito expeditions in Scotland, and stay 
at small country inns as Lord and Lady Churchill 
and party, without any danger of being found out ; or 
if they were found out, the people who made the dis- 
covery were too well bred to proclaim it, and showed 
their loyalty by respecting the wishes of their Sov- 
ereign to enjoy privacy. In the years before the 
Prince Consort's death the Queen's Ladies-in- Wait- 
ing, writing from Scotland, frequently speak of Her 
Majesty's high spirits, her love of dancing, and her 
enjoyment of rapid driving. 

Lady Canning wrote in the autumn of 1848 from 
Balmoral : — 

" The Queen has been np a really high mountain to-day, and has 
come down quite fresh after many hours. . . . The Queen is more and 
more delighted with Balmoral. She makes long expeditions alone with 
the Prince and gamekeepers, and has never been so independent before. 
. , . She went up Loch-na-gar, . . . and the same evening entertained 
all the neighbors at dinner, and was as fresh and merry as if she had 
done nothing." 

Four years later. Lady Canning wrote again from 
Balmoral : — 

" The Queen is fonder than ever of this place, and the Prince's shoot- 
ing improves. The children are as merry as grigs, and I hear the 
Prince of Wales and Prince AKred, who live under me, singing away 
out of lesson-time as loud as ever they can.*^ 



138 VICTORIA. 

Greville gives a description of the Royal Family at 
Balmoral, which deserves notice, especially as he had 
seen so much of Kings and Queens, and had no great 
affection for them; he was summoned to Balmoral for 
a Council meeting in 1849, before the present house, 
which is on a larger scale than the old one, was built; 
he writes : — 

" Much as I dislike Courts and all that appertains to them, I am 
glad to have made this expedition, and to have seen the Queen and 
Prince in their Highland retreat, where they certainly appear to great 
advantage. The place is very pretty, the house very small. They live 
not merely like private gentlefolks, but like very small gentlefolks, — 
small house, small rooms, small establishment.^ There are no soldiers. 
. . . They live with the greatest simplicity and ease. The Prince 
shoots every morning, returns to luncheon, and then they walk and 
drive. The Queen is running in and out of the house all day long, and 
often goes about alone, walks into the cottages, and sits doAvn and chats 
with the old women. I never before was in the society of the Prince, 
or had any conversation with him. ... I was greatly struck with him. 
I saw at once (what I had always heard) that he is very intelligent and 
highly cultivated, and, moreover, that he has a thoughtful mind, and 
thinks of subjects worth thinking about. He seemed very much at his 
ease, very gay, pleasant, and without the least stiffness or air of dignity." 

He then mentions an excursion in the afternoon in 
two pony carriages to the Highland gathering at 
Braemar, and that the evening wound up with a visit 
from a Highland dancing-master, who gave all the 
party, except himself and Lord John Russell, lessons 
in reels. 

The Queen's half-brother. Prince Charles of Lei- 
ningen, had been their companion on one of the very 
early visits of the Royal Family to Scotland. He 
died in 1856, and this loss was the first heart grief 
that the Queen had been called upon to endure. She 
was very tenderly attached to her half-brother and 
sister. The letters from the latter ^ in the " Prince 

1 The new house at Balmoral was not finished till 1855. 

2 The Princess Feodore of Hohenlohe. 



HOME LIFE. — OSBORNE AND BALMORAL. 139 

Consort's Life " indicate that hers was a noble soul, 
one of those beautiful natures, strong in love and 
spiritual insight, who, whether born in the palace or 
the cottage, are as a sheet-anchor to those who are 
baffled by the waves of sorrow and suffering. 

A rather curious incident in the Queen's private life 
may here be mentioned. A perfect stranger to her, 
Mr. Neale, died in 1852, and left her a legacy of 
£200,000. Her Majesty, on hearing of this, at once 
declared that if he had any relatives she would not 
accept the money ; but it appeared that he had none. 

The various attacks that have been made on the 
Queen's life belong more, perhaps, to her private than 
to her public life, for they have been the work of 
half-witted scoundrels rather than of political desper- 
adoes. In Ireland, when a murder is neither political 
nor agrarian, it is sometimes described as " merely a 
friendly affair;" and there is an undoubted satisfac- 
tion in the fact that the shots fired at the Queen have 
had no political aim. The first attempt on her life 
has been already recorded. On the second occasion 
the Queen again displayed a very remarkable degree 
of courage, because she drove out alone with the 
Prince when she knew that very probably she would 
be the aim of an assassin's bullet. It was in 1842, 
on Sunday, May 29, the Queen and Prince were 
returning from the Chapel Royal, St. James's, in a 
carriage along the Mall, when the Prince distinctly 
saw a man step out from the crowd, present a pistol 
full at them, and pull the trigger. He was only two 
paces distant, and the Prince heard the trigger snap, 
so there was no mistake about it. Fortunately, the 
weapon missed fire, and at first the Prince thought 
that no one but himself had seen what had happened. 
However, the attempt had been seen by two persons 
in the crowd, a boy and an old gentleman; the old 



140 VICTORIA. 

gentleman did nothing, but the boy came the next 
day, and reported what he had seen at the Palace. 
The Home Office and the police were communicated 
with, and there was naturally a good deal of excite- 
ment on the part of the Queen and Prince. They at 
once determined not to shut themselves up, but to 
take their drive as usual, although they knew that the 
would-be assassin was at large. "The only difference 
they made in her usual habits was that they went 
alone, without either a Lady-in-Waiting or a Maid of 
Honor in the carriage. They took the precaution of 
giving orders to drive faster than usual, and the Queen 
always drove fast, and two equerries on horseback 
accompanied the carriage. Nearly at the end of their 
drive, between the Green Park and the garden wall of 
Buckingham Palace, they were shot at again by the 
same man who had made the attempt the day before. 
When he fired he was only about five paces off. The 
shot, the Prince wrote, must have passed under the 
carriage. The fellow (John Francis) was immedi- 
ately seized. He was not crazy, but just a thorough 
scamp, "a little swarthy, ill-looking rascal." The 
same evening at dinner the Queen turned to one of 
her Maids of Honor, who had been rather put out at 
not being required to attend the Queen on her drive, 
and said, " I dare say, Georgy, you were surprised at 
not driving with me this afternoon, but the fact was 
that as we returned from church yesterday a man pre- 
sented a pistol at the carriage window, which flashed 
in the pan, and we were so taken by surprise he had 
time to escape, so 1 knew what was hanging over me, 
and was determined to expose no life but my own. " 
The Queen's uncle. Count Mensdorff, was very proud 
of his niece's courage, and called her sehr milthig., 
which pleased her very much, coming, as the compli- 
ment did, from a soldier who had seen much service. 



HOME LIFE. — OSBORNE AND BALMORAL. 141 

Greville's comment on the Queen's conduct is : " Very 
brave, but very imprudent." A couple of months 
later, in July, 1842, another of these dastardly 
attempts was made on Her Majesty's life, this time by 
a hunchback named Bean. Oxford had been treated 
as a lunatic, and sent to an asylum ; Francis had been 
found guilty of high treason, and sentenced to death ; 
but, at the Queen's strongly expressed wish, the sen- 
tence had been commuted to transportation for life. 
This leniency had been made public only the day 
before Bean's attempt, and the circumstance strength- 
ened Her Majesty's conviction that an alteration in 
the law was desirable. Up to this time it was only 
possible to deal with these outrages either as lunacy 
or as high treason, for which the penalty was death. 
After Bean's attempt a Bill was immediately intro- 
duced, and carried, making such offences punishable, 
as misdemeanors, by transportation, imprisonment, 
or whipping. The substitution of an unromantic, but 
certain, punishment, for a dignified, but uncertain 
one, had the desired effect, and these scoundrelly 
attacks upon the Queen ceased to be fashionable in 
the criminal world. Feints at attempted assassina- 
tion were made in 1849 by an Irish brickylayer, and 
in 1872 by a lad named O'Connor, who appears to 
have been a Fenian; but the weapons used by these 
worthies were not charged except with powder. In 
1382 a man named Maclean fired at the Queen as she 
was entering her carriage at Windsor Station. He 
was found on trial to be insane. In June, 1850, she 
was struck on the face with a cane by a man named 
Pate, who had been a lieutenant in the army. The 
Prince Consort said this man was "manifestly de- 
ranged." The chivalrous nature of Peel was strongly 
moved by the attacks of Francis and Bean, which 
took place while he was Prime Minister. After 



142 VICTORIA, 

Bean's attempt he hurried up to town to see the 
Prince, and consult with him on what ought to be 
done. While he was in conversation with the Prince 
the Queen entered the room, and Peel's emotion was 
so great that his habitual self-control left him, and 
he burst into tears. When it is remembered that 
only a few months earlier Greville had said, "Peel 
is so shy he makes the Queen shy," it is impossible 
not to surmise that this touch of nature may have 
brought about the final breaking down of reserve and 
coldness between the Queen and her Prime Minister. 

In various memoirs of the time, little pictures are 
given of "the Queen at Sea." She is a good sailor, 
and thoroughly enjoys the element over which Britan- 
nia rules. She likes sailors, and understands them. 
Greville tells that nothing could be more easy and 
agreeable than her demeanor on board her Royal 
yacht, " conversing all the time with perfect ease and 
good humor, and on all subjects, taking great interest, 
and very curious about everything in the ship, dining 
on deck in the midst of the sailors, making them 
dance, talking to the boatswain, and, in short, doing 
everything that was popular and ingratiating." He 
complains, however, that she was impatient, and 
always wanted to be going ahead, and to do everything 
quickly ; whereas the genuine sailor has an unfathom- 
able capacity for loafing. Lady Bloomfield, when 
Miss Georgina Liddell, attended the Queen as one of 
her Maids of Honor on a yachting cruise in 1843. 
She narrates how the Queen and her ladies settled 
themselves for reading and work in a very comfortable 
and sheltered place on deck, when they became aware 
that the position they had taken up was the subject of 
something like consternation to the captain and crew. 
The Queen laughingly inquired if there was about to 
be a mutiny? The captain in the same spirit replied 



HOME LIFE. — OSBORNE AND BALMORAL. 143 

that he could be answerable for nothing unless Her 
Majesty would be graciously pleased to change her 
seat. The chairs of the ladies were blockading the 
grog cupboard ! As soon as the Queen was informed 
of this, she consented to move her chair, on condition 
that she was to share the sailors' grog. On tasting 
it she said, " I am afraid I can only make the same 
remaik I did once before, that 1 think it would be 
very good if it were stronger I " The hint was taken, 
and the sailors were of course delighted by the Queen's 
good-nature. 

One more little home touch must conclude this chap- 
ter. Reference has already been made to the Queen's 
reluctance to part from the Prince eVen for a few days. 
When it was necessary for him to leave her, he kept 
her constantly supplied with diary-letters, showing 
that his thoughts and heart were ever with her. On 
one of these absences, occasioned by the death of his 
father, the Duke of Coburg, in 1844, Prince Albert 
was away a fortnight. His own entry in his journal 
thus records his return : " Crossed on the 11th. I 
arrived at six o'clock in the evening at Windsor. 
G-reat joy. " 



CHAPTER XI. 

FORTY- THREE TO FORTY-EIGHT. 

The Queen's first visit to a foreign country took place 
in September, 1843, when she and the Prince visited 
Louis Philippe and his family at Chateau d'Eu, near 
Treport. It was not only the Queen's first visit to 
France, but the first time since the Field of the Cloth 
of Gold that an English reigning sovereign had been 
in France ; and even then the meeting of the two sov- 
ereigns had taken place on English territory near 
Calais. The Queen was enchanted with everything 
she saw. She had to the full all the keen and vivid 
interest which is almost invariably awakened by see- 
ing for the first time all those innumerable little 
differences in every-day things which make a first 
foreign visit such a revelation. If she was delighted 
with France, she was no less so with her hosts, the 
King of the French and his family. She had been for 
six years Queen of England, and it was, perhaps, a 
refreshment to her to associate with those who were 
not her subjects, but her equals. She wrote in her 
journal, "I feel so gay and happy with these dear 
people, " Louis Philippe, on his part, was extremely 
anxious to make her visit agreeable to her. He 
highly appreciated the honor she was conferring on 
him. The representatives of the ancient monarchies 
of Europe did not view him with any cordiality. He 
was not king by divine right, but by the choice of the 
French people ; the rightful King of France, in the 
view of the Emperors of Russia and Austria, was 
the exiled Comte de Chambord, Henry Y. as they 



FORTY-THREE TO FORTY-EIGHT. 145 

called him. Heuce Louis Philippe cordially wel- 
comed the social prestige which he gained by receiv- 
ing a visit from the Queen of England. The King 
expressed his obligations on this score to Prince 
Albert over and over again. 

The Earl of Aberdeen, the Foreign Secretary of 
the day, accompanied the Queen and Prince to France. 
The English Foreign Office at this time regarded with 
apprehension a scheme which they believed Louis 
Philippe and his Minister, Guizot, had in view of 
strengthening French interests in Spain by marrying 
one of the King's sons to the young Queen Isabella. 
Louis Philippe, on the occasion of the Queen's visit, 
assured her most positively, and Guizot said the same 
thing to Aberdeen, that he had no wish or intention 
of the kind, that even if his son were asked in mar- 
riage for the Queen of Spain, he would not consent. 
The Queen of Spain and her sister the Infanta were 
then young girls of thirteen and twelve respectively. 
The French King's assurances to our Queen went so 
far as a positive promise that even if one of his sons 
should eventually marry the Infanta, he should not 
consent to the union until after the Queen of Spain 
was married and had children. It is necessary to go 
at length into the wretched story. Louis Philippe 
and Guizot covered themselves with infamy. Through 
their influence a hateful marriage was forced on 
Queen Isabella, her consent to it being, it is said, 
wrung from her under the influence of intoxication ; 
from this marriage it was hoped and believed that no 
children would be born. At the same time that this 
so-called marriage was announced, it was also made 
public that the Infanta would be married to the Due 
de Montpensier, son of Louis Philippe. The two 
marriages took place on the same day, October 10th, 
1846. Well might Stockmar write of this odious 

10 



146 VICTORIA. 

transaction, as "a political intrigue which exceeds 
in immorality and vulgarity everything brought out 
in modern times on the theatre of politics; a part 
which would have shut out any one who had attempted 
to play it in the circle of private life from all 
respectable society. " 

Our Queen was deeply incensed; her whole soul 
revolted from the wickedness of the scheme, and she 
had the added bitterness of feeling that Louis 
Philippe had been guilty of personal deception towards 
herself. It was he who introduced the subject when 
she visited him at Eu, and gave her assurances upon 
it, unsought by her, and lightly broken by him. His 
way of announcing the project to her did not mend 
matters. He was ashamed to broach the subject in a 
formal manner, and he got his wife to tell the Queen 
as a detail of family news in a private and friendly 
letter, speaking of it as if it were of no political 
importance, but simply an event that would add to 
the domestic happiness ("le seul vrai dans ce monde," 
the poor Queen Marie Am^lie was made to say) of the 
French Royal Family. Our Queen's reply was exceed- 
ing dignified, severe, short, and self-restrained. It 
left no doubt as to her sentiments; and nothing is 
more indicative of Louis Philippe's bad conscience in 
the matter than the fact, which he himself admits, 
that he sat up till four in the morning on three 
following nights composing a reply in which he 
endeavored in vain to justify himself.^ 

It is of course quite open to doubt whether the Eng- 
lish Foreign Office had been justified in regarding 

1 The poor excuse put forward by Louis Philippe was that the 
English Foreign Secretary, then Lord Palmerston, was manoeuvring to 
bring about a marriage between a Coburg Prince and the Queen of 
Spain. There was no foundation for this charge ; but Louis Philippe 
seems to have had a terror of Lord Palmerston which deprived him of 
all self-control, and capacity for judging of evidence. 



FORTY-THREE TO FORTY-EIGHT. 147 

with apprehension the possible accession of a grandson 
of Louis Philippe to the troublous royalty of Spain. 
Cobden and the school he represented in England did 
not think it mattered a straw to England, from the 
political point of view, whom the Queen of Spain 
married. But the transaction could not be looked at 
as merely political. It was condemned throughout 
the length and breadth of England as grossly immoral, 
and the disgust it occasioned was all the greater on 
account of the pretensions to high motives and to 
religious principles assumed by the French King and 
his Minister. 

Events soon confirmed the views of the Queen and 
Prince, so often inculcated by Stockmar, that sorrow 
will always be found dogging sin. The Spanish mar- 
riages took place in October, 1846 : in fifteen months 
from that time Louis Philippe and the dynasty he 
hoped to found had been swept away; the little 
Spanish daughter-in-law whose son he had hoped 
might wear the crown of Spain was, with other mem- 
bers of his family, fugitive in England, indebted for 
shelter and even clothing to our Queen, who forgot 
all her resentment, and gave them a most kind wel- 
come. Nothing came about as Louis Philippe had 
planned. The Queen of Spain had children; her 
grandson is now the baby King of Spain, and Louis 
Philippe's great-grandson, exiled from France, is 
addressing futile ^ proclamations from English soil, 
to assure the French people that when they want him, 
which they show no sign of doing, he is ready to 
ascend the throne of his ancestors. It has been 
remarked that a strange fatality attended on many 
of the chief actors in the Spanish marriages. The 
French Minister at Madrid, M. Bresson, committed 
suicide in 1847. Louis Philippe and his dynasty were 

1 See Times, January 18th, 1895. 



148 VICTORIA. 

overthrown in 1848. Queen Isabella was deposed in 
1868. Her son, Alfonso XII., married his cousin 
Princess Mercedes Montpensier. She died, not with- 
out suspicions of poisoning, within a year of her 
marriage ; and he died, while still quite a young man, 
before the birth of his only son by his second mar- 
riage. Before the accession of Alfonso XII., the 
question of a successor to Queen Isabella was the 
proximate cause of the French and German War of 
1870-71. 

Cobden, travelling in France very shortly before the 
outbreak of 1848, saw nothing which led him to expect 
any political disturbance; he believed the future to 
promise nothing but tranquillity and commercial 
development, and that Free Trade spelt "peace on 
earth. " 

Stockmar was a Free Trader too, but he had learnt 
that that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that 
which is born of the spirit is spirit. He did not look 
for spiritual results from purely material causes ; and 
perhaps his vantage-ground on what he called the 
watch-tower of London, or even his position at the 
"hole in the stove " in Coburg, enabled him to gauge 
more correctly than Cobden the political forces of the 
time. He had foreseen the outbreak of revolution, as 
the result to be expected from despotism and bad 
government on the Continent, added to the misery 
and destitution of the great masses of the people. 
The storm of 1848 did not find him unprepared ; and 
in England and Belgium, where the principles of con- 
stitutionalism, as understood and taught by him, had 
taken firm hold, were almost the only countries in 
Europe where revolution did not get the upper hand. 

But although this was so, 1848 was a sufficiently 
serious time in England. In Ireland the misery oi 
the people had amounted to actual famine, and not- 



FORTY-THREE TO FORTY-EIGHT. 149 

withstanding everything that lavish expenditure and 
devoted services, both by public servants and private 
individuals, could do, hundreds of thousands perished 
from starvation or its attendant pestilence. In the 
Union of Skibbereen nearly the whole population, 
11,000 persons, perished. The shopkeepers of the 
little Kerry town of Kenmare told the writer of these 
pages in 1870 that during the worst months of the 
famine of 1847 they seldom took down their shutters 
in the morning without finding one or two corpses in 
the street, poor things who had been living in the 
mountains and had just had strength to crawl down 
into Kenmare to die. And what was famine in Ire- 
land was the bitter pinch of scarcity in England and 
Scotland. In February, 1847, wheat was 102 shillings 
a quarter; added to this there was a general sense of 
alarm and absence of security, bringing with it want 
of capital, want of employment, want of wages. 
There was hardly a house, rich or poor, that was not 
suffering loss ; but while to the rich the loss meant 
giving up luxuries which only custom had made seem 
necessaries, to the poor it meant actual want and 
privation ; ^ when men are low and miserable, and 
feel they have nothing to lose, is the time when revo- 
lutionary propaganda works like wildfire among them. 
There was an avowedly revolutionary political party 
in Ireland, always ready to take advantage of any 
difficulty the Government might be in, foreign or 
domestic, in order to harass and thwart them. 
"Refuse us this " (repeal of the Union) O'Connell had 
said in 1840, when war with France hung in the 

1 Greville anticipated that the troubles of the time would affect him 
to the extent of the loss of half his income. He did not whine, but said, 
though he should not like it, he hoped and believed he could accommo- 
date himself to the necessary change in his habits without repining 
outwardly or inwardly. 



150 VICTORIA, 

balance about the Eastern Question, " and then in the 
day of your weakness dare to go to war with the most 
insignificant of the powers of Europe. " In 1848, the 
mantle of O'Connell had fallen on John Mitchel, who, 
in his paper called The United Irishman, gave instruc- 
tions for the successful carrying on of revolutionary 
street warfare; he recommended the covering of the 
streets with broken glass to lame the horses of the sol- 
diery, and suggested that the citizens should provide 
themselves with missiles to throw from the houses; 
these, he said, could be used with great effect from the 
elevation of a top story, especially if forethought had 
been used to provide "boiling water or grease, or, 
better, cold vitriol if available. Molten lead is good, 
but too valuable ; it should always be cast in bullets 
and allowed to cool." This and a great deal of simi- 
lar rubbish was poured forth day by day, or week by 
week, in the rebel papers. It would be harmless 
enough in an ordinary way ; but amid the excitements 
of 1848, and addressed to such an excitable people, it 
might have proved a spark in a powder magazine. 
Mr. Mitchel proclaimed his intention of committing 
high treason, but he was arrested before he had had 
an opportunity of doing so. A deputation of Irish 
revolutionists was sent to the Provisional Government 
in Paris to demand "what they were sure to obtain, 
the assistance of 50,000 troops for Ireland." The 
French Government absolutely declined the proposal, 
and said they were at peace with Great Britain, and 
wished to remain so. Mitchel was sentenced to trans- 
portation, and the heads of the deputation to Paris 
were found guilty of high treason and sentenced to 
death. Their sentences were, however, commuted to 
transportation, and then the fate which so often 
throws a ludicrous aspect over Irish revolutionary 
affairs overtook them; they denied the right of the 



FORTY-THREE TO FORTY-EIGHT. 151 

Crown to reduce the severity of their sentences, and 
demanded that thej should either be set at liberty, or 
hanged, drawn, and quartered, — a request which it is 
needless to say was disregarded. 

But Ireland was not the only source of anxiety; 
there was a threatening of riot and pillage in Scot- 
land, and one very serious rising took place near 
Glasgow. It was suppressed through the personal and 
moral courage of the Sheriff of Lanarkshire, Sir 
Archibald Alison; but if it had been successful the 
whole of the manufacturing district of the West of 
Scotland would probably have taken fire. In England 
danger appeared to threaten from the Chartist move- 
ment. The Chartists gave notice that they intended 
to assemble at Kennington Common 500,000 strong, 
on the 10th April, 1848, and to march thence to the 
House of Commons, there to present their petition, 
which they said had received nearly 6,000,000 signa- 
tures. It is rather significant that Englishmen, even 
when they talk revolution, can, w^hen it comes to 
action, think of nothing less constitutional than the 
presenting of a petition to Parliament. Sampson, the 
servant in Romeo ayid Juliet, is the typical English 
revolutionist. " Is the law on our side if I say — ay? " 
How^ever, the Queen, the Ministry, and the whole 
country were alarmed. In London thousands of 
special constables voluntarily enrolled themselves, as 
a civil force, to help the military, if need were, to 
maintain order. The Duke of Wellington as Com- 
mander-in-Chief, directed special preparations for the 
defence of London ; but with this usual good sense he 
took care that not a single extra soldier or piece of 
artillery was to be seen on the eventful day. The 
Admiralty, Horse Guards, and Treasury were strongly 
garrisoned and filled with arms ; there were 800 men 
with cannon in Buckingham Palace, and steamers and 



152 VICTORIA. 

gunboats lay in readiness on the river. Country 
gentlemen garrisoned their London houses with their 
gamekeepers armed with double-barrelled guns. As 
everybody knows now, it all ended in smoke. The 
10th of April, 18^8, came and went; the Chartists 
met at Kennington, not 500,000, but about 25,000 
strong; their petition contained not six million, but 
about two million signatures, a very large proportion 
of which were fictitious. About 8,000 men from the 
mass meeting Avalked in procession towards West- 
minster. On being met on the bridge by a police 
force, and informed they would not be allowed to 
cross in mass, they bowed to the inevitable, and sent 
their petition to Parliament in three four-wheeled 
cabs! In this humble and unromantic manner ended 
the English revolution of '48. The whole movement 
was overwhelmed with ridicule, from which it never 
recovered, and the ordinary law-abiding people felt 
ashamed that they had allowed themselves ever to 
believe in its seriousness. 

Constitutional government was stronger than it 
knew itself to be. It was easy to be wise after the 
event ; but before, many brave hearts had failed them 
for fear. The Queen was, of course, specially affected 
by events on the Continent, as the monarchs whose 
rule was being either overturned or threatened were 
in many instances her relations and friends. She 
wrote on the 6th March to Stockmar, "I am quite 
well, indeed particularly so, though God knows we 
have had since the 25th enough for a whole life, — 
anxiety, sorrow, excitement." On the very day on 
which the Queen wrote, a mob had rushed to Bucking- 
ham Palace, breaking lamps and shouting, "Vive la 
Republique ! " However, their leader, when arrested, 
began to cry 1 so that he could not be considered a 
dangerous revolutionist. 



FORTY-THREE TO FORTY-EIGHT. 153 

It was in the midst of all this excitement that 
Princess Louise was born, on March 18th, 1848. 
With all the fear caused by the anticipation of the 
Chartist movement on April 10th, it is not surprising 
that the Prime Minister, Lord John Russell, strongly 
urged the removal of the Court to Osborne. It is not 
impossible that the three-weeks-old baby was even 
more persuasive than the Prime Minister. However 
this may be, the Queen left London for Osborne on 
April 8th, not without some criticism from Greville. 
Greville was nothing if not critical; he had blamed 
Sir Eobert Peel for resigning in 1844, and thus caus- 
ing a ministerial crisis when the Queen was near her 
confinement, and he now blamed Lord John Russell 
for advising the Queen to go to Osborne with her 
new-born infant, in anticipation of a Chartist riot in 
London on April 10, 1848. 

There was an immense feeling of relief all over 
the country when the day passed off so quietly. The 
popular feeling in London was manifested by the 
cheers which greeted the Duke of Wellington when he 
turned out early the next morning to his post at the 
Horse Guards. The Prince wrote to his private 
secretary on April 11th, " What a glorious day was 
yesterday for England. . . . How mightily this will 
tell all over the world ! " The utter inability of the 
revolutionary germ to thrive in the soil of constitu- 
tional liberty was the lesson of 1848. Repeated illus- 
trations of the same fact have been given in more 
recent times. After the explosion in Greenwich Park 
in 1894, caused by the Frenchman Bourdin, the police 
seized an anarchist club near Tottenham Court Road, 
and caught a gang of eighty men representing the 
anarchist propaganda in London. Every man but 
one was a foreigner, and the solitary Englishman 
was a journalist who had come, not to revolutionize, 
but to get copy for his paper ! 



154 VICTORIA. 

With characteristic conscientiousness the Queen and 
her husband did not rest content with the fact that 
the social peace of England was not endangered. 
They felt there never would have been even the anti- 
cipation of danger, unless there had been much in the 
condition of the poorer classes which called for 
redress. They had not been many days at Osborne 
before they sent for Lord Ashley (better known to this 
generation as Lord Shaftesbury), and asked his advice 
as to what could be done to render more happy the 
condition of the poor. This was a subject which, as 
is well known, was to Lord Ashley, not merely an 
occupation, but a passion. His whole life, from youth 
to old age, was given to it ; almost his last words, at 
the age of 85, when he knew he was dying, were: "I 
cannot bear to leave the world, with all the misery 
in it." The Prince could not, therefore, have sent 
for a better counsellor. They had a long conversation 
in the gardens at Osborne. The Prince asked for 
advice, and how he could best assist towards the com- 
mon weal. "Now, sir," replied Lord Ashley, "I 
have to ask your Royal Highness whether I am to 
speak out freely, or to observe Court form." "For 
God's sake," said the Prince, "speak out freely." 

Lord Ashley then advised him to throw himself into 
movements to promote the social well-being of the 
masses of the people, and to show in public that he 
was doing so. On the Prince asking for more detail, 
Lord Ashley urged him to come and see for himself 
how the poorest people in London lived; to go into 
their houses, and he offered himself to conduct the 
Prince over houses in St. Giles, near Seven Dials. 
He also urged him to take the chair a month later at 
the meeting of the Laborers' Friend Society, and 
(with the little bit of worldly wisdom that guileless 
people so often pride themselves on) to come in semi- 



FORTY-THREE TO FORTY-EIGHT. 155 

state, with several carriages, four horses, outriders 
and scarlet liveries. The Prince felt he ought not 
to consent to all this without asking Lord John 
Russell's advice; but he gave a conditional consent. 
Lord John, however, was hostile, and offered strong 
opposition to the Prince acting on Lord Ashley's 
advice. However, Lord Ashley stuck to his guns. 
He admitted that in any strictly political matter the 
Prince was bound to abide by the advice of the Prime 
Minister, but on a matter like this he advised the 
Prince to tell Lord John that " Your Royal Highness 
is as good a judge as he is." Lord Ashley finally 
prevailed, and the Prince took the chair at the 
Laborers' Friend meeting on May 18th, 1848. The 
outriders and the scarlet liveries were not omitted, 
and the Prince made a speech which Sir Theodore 
Martin says first fairly showed the country what he 
was, and gave a very important impulse to the mani- 
fold movements towards social improvement which 
have been so marked a feature of the present reign. 
Thus out of the " nettle, danger, " we were enabled " to 
pluck the flower, safety." 



CHAPTER XII. 

PALMERSTON. 

With none of her Ministers has the Queen ever been 
in sharper conflict than with Lord Palmerston. From 
his third Foreign Secretaryship in 1846 till his dis- 
missal in 1852, the history of their relations was one 
long struggle. 

Palmerston considered himself the political inheri- 
tor of Canning's foreign policy, and that he was 
bound, as the representative of England to foreign 
Governments, to be the upholder of political liberty 
and the foe of tyranny and oppression all over Europe. 
In this he carried with him the whole-hearted sym- 
pathy of the mass of English public opinion. It was 
not with his opinions and views, but with his way of 
giving effect to them, that the Queen quarrelled. But 
the English people were not in a position at the time 
the conflict was going on to make the distinction. 
They knew that the Queen and Lord Palmerston were 
pulling different ways, and that Lord Palmerston was 
the friend of Hungary, and Poland, and Italy ; and in 
proportion as they gave their sympathy to these 
countries and to Lord Palmerston, they were hostile 
to the Court. Now, as their personal loyalty to the 
Queen was very strong, they sought to find a reason for 
the Queen's opposition to Lord Palmerston, and they 
found it, or thought they found it, in the person of 
the Prince. The Queen's husband was supposed to 
be a power behind the throne thwarting the will of 
her constitutional advisers in the interests of foreign 
despots. The popular view was that the Prince ruled 



PALMERSTON. 157 

the Queen, and that Stockmar ruled the Prince, and 
therefore that the policy of the court was not English, 
but German. That this was a complete misunder- 
standing, the publication of the "Prince Consort's 
Life," besides many other political memoirs and 
memoranda, has abundantly shown. But it was a very 
natural mistake, and from it arose, not altogether, 
it is to be feared, without the connivance of Lord 
Palmerston, a degree of hostility against the Prince 
which reached an extraordinary height during the 
early part of the Crimean War. 

The question between the Queen and Lord Palmer- 
ston is no lono'er obscured bv side issues ; at no time 
was it based upon a divergence of political views. 
What the Queen, and the majority of Lord Palmer- 
ston's colleagues in the Government, no less than the 
Queen, objected to, was his way of sending despatches, 
calculated seriously to embroil England with foreign 
Governments, either entirely without their knowledge 
and concurrence, going through the form of submit- 
ting despatches to them for their criticism and 
approval, and then actually sending off something 
entirely different. The despatches submitted by the 
Foreign Secretary to the Cabinet and to the Queen, 
and materially altered by them, would be sometimes 
recast by Palmerston in accordance with his original 
draft, and thus the Ministers and Sovereign were 
made to appear to have consented to that of which 
they had disapproved. At other times he would send 
important despatches to the Queen for her approval, 
allowing her quite an inadequate time to digest their 
contents, almost forcing the suspicion that he wished 
her to give her assent without knowing what they 
contained. When this practice was complained of by 
the Prime Minister, Palmerston excused himself by 
saying that the practice of sending off early copies of 



158 VICTORIA. 

despatches for the Queen's perusal had been discon- 
tinued, owing to pressure of work in the office ; " hut 
if it shall require an additional clerk or two, you 
must be liberal," he wrote to Lord John Russell, " and 
allow me that assistance." This plea of economy 
came rather strangely from a Foreign Secretary who 
in 1841 had appointed five new paid attaches without 
the smallest necessity, and who in one year had spent 
.£11,000 in coach- hire to convey messages to overtake 
the mails with his letters. The fact is that Lord 
Palmerston was the sworn foe of despotism every- 
where, except in the Foreign Office, when he was 
Foreign Secretary. In the Foreign Office he reigned 
supreme and absolute, and would suffer no control either 
from his colleagues or his Sovereign. With all this, 
it was impossible not to like him. He had a jollity, 
a honJiomie, a complete absence of rancor against those 
who had wrestled with him and thrown him, an easy 
elasticity, a buoyant faith in himself and in England, 
which won the hearts of his countrymen. He made 
mistakes and went through humiliations that would 
have crushed or imbittered any other man, without 
losing a jot of his buoyancy and self-confidence. He 
pursued his own line of policy with incomparable 
nerve and tenacity. If he triumphed, he crowed; if 
he was defeated, no one would guess it from his 
demeanor ; he would be cutting his jokes the next day 
as " game " as ever. No nature could have afforded 
a greater contrast to that of the Prince Consort; and 
while one from sheer force and vigor, and the other 
by position and character, were prominent among the 
leading politicians of their day, they were certain to 
be in sharp and almost perpetual conflict. He thought 
the Prince's hope of German unity a mere dream, 
impossible of fulfilment, and an alliance between 
England and Germany, therefore, entirely useless to 



PALMERSTON. 159 

ourselves. This brought them into political conflict 
just as their characters brought them into personal 
conflict. Two or three instances will suffice to illus- 
trate what Palmerston was at the Foreign Office, In 
1849, the Neapolitans being in insurrections against 
the infamous misgovernment under which they suf- 
fered, Lord Palmerston supplied them with war mate- 
rial out of the stores of the English Government 
without the knowledge or consent of his colleagues. 
Now it may be right or wrong to sympathize with 
insurgents ; but for a Government of another country 
to supply them with arms is an act of war, of which 
no single Minister has the right to undertake the 
responsibility. On this occasion Palmerston was 
compelled to make a formal official apology to the 
King of Naples. A question asked in the House of 
Commons was the first intimation the Prime Minister, 
Lord John Russell, had of what his colleague had 
done. 

One of the special objects of Palmerston's abhor- 
rence was Austria ; and it was a state of mind with 
which there was much sympathy in England. Neither 
in Italy nor in Hungary could the English people 
regard the Austrian Government otherwise than as a 
cruel and perfidious tyranny. This national feeling 
had burst out in England on the occasion of the visit 
to London in 1850 of the Austrian General Haynau. 
In Italy and Hungary the name of this man was asso- 
ciated with acts of barbarous cruelty in putting down 
the national movement. He was especially charged, 
and the charsie was universallv believed in Ens-land, 
with the responsibility of having ordered the flogging 
of women among the Hungarian insurgents. When 
in London he made a visit to Barclay's brewery. The 
draymen and other employes got wind who their 
foreign visitor was; they gathered together in the 



160 VICTORIA. 

yard of the brewery, and rushed upon him with a 
torrent of abusive epithets; the general cry was, 
"Down with the Austrian butcher;" they dropped a 
truss of straw upon him, pelted him with small 
missiles, and tore his coat, and knocked his hat over 
his eyes. He and his friends fought their way out of 
the brewery, only to find an equally warm reception 
outside from the people in the streets ; he was again 
pelted, struck, and dragged along the road by his 
mustache. He finally got shelter in the upper part 
of a public-house, and the police contrived his escape 
by the river. The general feeling in the country was 
" serve him right ; " but the Queen was seriously 
annoyed, and dwelt, not without justice, on the cow- 
ardice of an attack by a whole mob upon a single 
unarmed man. At the desire of the Queen, Palmerston 
expressed in person to the Austrian charge d'affaires 
the regret of the Government at the incident ; but at 
the same time advised that no prosecution should be 
instituted by Haynau, as this would involve a minute 
recapitulation of the barbarities of which he was 
accused. Palmerston 's private opinion on the affair 
was expressed in a letter to Sir George Grey, the 
Home Secretary, in which he says : " The draymen 
were wrong in the particular course they adopted. 
Instead of striking him, . . . they ought to have tossed 
him in a blanket, rolled him in the kennel, and then 
sent him home in a cab, paying his fare to the hotel." 
It may be easily imagined that he did not cordially 
respond to an order to send a formal written apology 
to the Austrian Government, and there was a pro- 
longed duel between Lord Palmerston on the one side, 
and the Prime Minister and the Queen on the other, 
upon the wording of it. As originally drafted by 
Palmerston, it contained a paragraph implying that 
it would have shown better taste on the part of General 



PALMERSTON. 161 

Haynau to take his autumn holiday nearer home. 
This was corrected in the draft by the Prime Minister, 
and the correction was indorsed by Her Majesty ; the 
amended despatch was then returned to the Foreign 
Secretary, who, in the mean time, had sent off to the 
Austrian Government the despatch as originally drawn 
by himself. Then began a regular pitched battle. 
Palmerston said he would rather resign than withdraw 
the despatch and substitute the one approved by the 
Queen and Prime Minister. Sir Theodore Martin 
says that Palmerston ultimately gave way. Greville 
says he never did. Mr. Evelyn Ashley says nothing. 
It is certain that the Haynau incident was for years 
considered enough to account for the hostility of 
Austria to England. It was for this that Austria 
alone of all the great Powers refrained from sending a 
representative to the Duke of Wellington's funeral; 
and some people thought it was this that prevented 
her joining her forces to those of England and France 
in the Crimean War. But Palmerston was not long 
in giving Austria other items to add to her account 
against England. 

When Kossuth was in England in 1851, he having 
been the leader of the unsuccessful Hungarian insur- 
rection against Austria, he was received with tremen- 
dous enthusiasm all over England. The Austrians 
were furious, and their anger was intensified by the 
report that Lord Palmerston was going to receive him 
at the Foreign Office. Many politicians thought that 
this would be regarded by Austria as equivalent to a 
declaration of war. The Cabinet remonstrated, and 
Palmerston, to their relief and surprise, yielded. A 
day or two after this, Greville saw Lord John Russell 
and Palmerston at Windsor, "mighty merry and cor- 
dial, laughing and talking together. Those breezes 
leave nothing behind, particularly with Palmerston, 

11 



162 VICTORIA. 

who never loses his temper, and treats everything with 
levity and gayety. " But Palmerston docile was more 
dangerous than Palmerston pugnacious. The next 
week he was receiving addresses at the Foreign Office 
from Finsbury and Islington, thanking him for the 
protection he had given to Kossuth, and for the sym- 
pathy he had shown to the Hungarian cause. In his 
reply he gave warm expression to his sympathy with 
Hungary, and spoke of the position of the British 
Government as that of the " judicious bottle-holder " 
during the conflict between Hungary and her foe. 
The phrase has been remembered after the occasion 
on which it was used has been forgotten. The people 
applied it to Palmerston himself, and liked him all 
the more for it. But the proceeding was strongly and 
formally censured in the Cabinet and by the Queen. 
Her Majesty's anger was not appeased by those who 
told her that although the Emperor of Austria might 
be angry, the action of the Foreign Secretary was not 
unpopular with the English people. Her Majesty 
replied : — 

" It is no question with the Queen whether she pleases the Emperor 
of Austria or not, but whether she gives him a just ground of complaint 
or not. And if she does so, she can never believe that this will add to 
her popularity with her own people." ^ 

Lord John communicated the Queen's views to Lord 
Palmerston, and he was especially cautioned as to the 
future upon "the necessity of a guarded conduct." 
Lord John writing to the Queen was sanguine enough 
to hope that this remonstrance would " have its effect 
upon Lord Palmerston." The ink of his letter was 
hardly dry when like a clap of thunder came the news 
of the coup df^etat in Paris; Louis Napoleon, then 
President of the Republic, had had his political oppo- 
nents seized in the night and thrown into prison, 

1 Letter from the Queen to Lord John Russell, Nov. 21stj 1851. 



PALMERSTON. 163 

nearly 500 persons were shipped off to Cayenne with- 
out any form of trial, thousands were shot down in the 
streets, and the Prince President became first by 
military force and then by popular election Napoleon 
III. and Emperor of the French. 

The Queen, true to her principles of non-interven- 
tion, at once wrote to the Prime Minister, instructing 
him to caution Lord Normanby, our ambassador in 
Paris, to observe strict neutrality, and to remain 
absolutely passive towards the new Government. Lord 
Palmerston accordingly sent a despatch to Lord 
Normanby in that sense. At the same time, however, 
that he was sending his despatch to Paris, he was 
seeing Count Walewski, the French ambassador in 
London, and expressing his entire approbation of the 
coup d^etat and his conviction that the President could 
not have acted otherwise than he had done ! On the 
16th December he followed this up by a despatch to 
Lord Normanby, expressing his conviction that the 
action of Louis Napoleon was for the benefit of France 
and also of the rest of Europe. This despatch was 
sent off without the knowledge or approval of the 
Queen or the Prime Minister, and in contravention 
of their express wishes. This was the end. Lord 
Palmerston was dismissed, not at the instance of the 
Queen, but with her entire approval. Lord John 
Russell offered him, as a consolation, the Lord Lieu- 
tenantcy of L^eland and a British Peerage, both of 
which were curtly declined. The general opinion of 
the political world was that Palmerston's career was 
over. Disraeli spoke of him in the past tense, as if 
he were dead. There was tremendous rejoicing over 
his fall in every stronghold of despotism in Europe, 
especially in Austria, where the heads of the Govern- 
ment took credit to themselves for his overthrow, and 
gave balls in honor of the event ; a rhyme was current 



164 VICTORIA. 

in Austria at the time which expresses the feelings 
Palmerston had awakened : — 

" Hat der Teufel einen Sohn, 
So ist er sicher Palmerston.''' i 

In the debate in the House of Commons which fol- 
lowed these events, Lord John made a most successful 
speech, in which he showed the impossibility of work- 
ing with a colleague who deliberately defied the express 
views of the whole Cabinet; he read the memorandum 
drawn up by the Queen for Lord Palmerston's guid- 
ance on the occasion of a former dispute. In this 
paper Her Majesty had claimed her right to know 
distinctly what the proposals were to which she was 
asked to give her sanction, and, secondly, that, having 
once given her sanction to a despatch, it was not to be 
* arbitrarily altered or modified by the Minister. She 
also claimed her right to be kept informed of what 
passed between the Foreign Secretary and the ambas- 
sadors before important decisions were taken, and to 
receive the despatches in good time, so that she could 
acquaint herself with their contents. Lord John 
Russell completely carried the House with him. It 
was felt that the demands of the Queen and the Cabinet 
had been strictly reasonable, and that it would be 
impossible to carry on the business of the country on 
any other basis. Lord Palmerston practically had no 
defence, and he abandoned any attempt to manufacture 
one. Of the Queen's memorandum he said not a 
word. Greville says the effect of Lord John's speech 
was prodigious, and that Palmerston's reply was weak 
and ineffective. He had resigned the seals of the 
Foreign Office before Parliament met, and Lord 
Granville had been appointed his successor. He bore 
the whole position with admirable good temper. He 

1 If the Devil has a son, 
Sure his name is Palmerston. 



PALMERSTON. 165 

received Lord Granville with the greatest cordiality, 
spent three hours with him putting him in possession 
of the threads of his diplomacy, spoke of the Court 
without bitterness, and in strong terms of the Queen's 
"sagacity," and ended by offering to give any infor- 
mation or assistance that was in his power. He pur- 
sued the same line of conduct when in a few weeks 
Lord John Russell's Government fell and was succeeded 
by Lord Derby's; Lord Malmesbury becoming Foreign 
Secretary. Palmerston at once came to see him, and 
offered to coach him in Foreign Office policy. He 
gave the new Foreign Secretary a masterly sketch of 
the status quo in Europe, as well as general hints upon 
the principles by which English policy should be 
guided; the pith of these was, "Keep well with 
France. " By this means, though ousted from office, 
Palmerston remained practically the director of the 
policy of the Foreign Office. 

All the contemporary records agree upon the main 
outward and visible facts; but they are provokingly 
silent upon Palmerston's real motives. He was 
neither a hot-headed youth, acting on the impulse of 
the moment, neither was he " an old man in a hurry ; " 
he was sixty-seven years old, about the prime of life 
for a statesman, and steeped to the lips in an absorb- 
ing interest in England's foreign politics. His whole 
tradition had been to oppose despotism and support 
civil and political liberty against despots all over 
Europe. Why did he go out of his way to establish, 
so far as he could, a cordial understanding with a 
despot who was also an upstart, and whose Govern- 
ment was founded on violence, and carried on by 
crushing every vestige of liberty in France ? Some 
have thought an answer could be found in his hostility 
to the Orleans family ; but this does Palmerston less 
than justice. It is true he hated Louis Philippe, and 



166 VICTORIA. 

rejoiced in his fall, which he attributed to the King's 
perfidy about the Spanish marriages. When the 
French King was fugitive in England, Palmerston 
had tried to prevent his receiving the shelter of 
Claremont, although the Government really had no 
business whatever to interfere, as Claremont had been 
settled for his life on Leopold, King of the Belgians, 
and if he chose to lend it to his father-in-law, no one 
else had any business in the matter. Louis Philippe 
died in 1850, and in 1851, although Palmerston said 
the Orleans Princes were plotting for a restoration, 
and if Louis Napoleon had not struck when he did, he 
would himself have been overthrown, the excuse was 
not a good one. Some contend that Palmerston was 
afraid of the red spectre in France, and thought Louis 
Napoleon the only man capable of laying it. But 
Palmerston was not afraid of the reds in any other 
European country. The real explanation of his con- 
duct must be sought elsewhere. At the end of 1851, 
it required no superhuman power of prophecy, espe- 
cially to one who surveyed Europe from the watch- 
tower of the London Foreign Office, to foresee that 
the time was approaching when England would have 
to face the alternative of either relinquishing her 
traditional policy of maintaining the integrity of the 
Ottoman Empire, or fight Russia in order to sustain 
it. Palmerston, it need hardly be said, was all for 
fighting ; but the question was whether England would 
face Russia alone, or whether Russia would restore 
the Holy Alliance, and thus lead a combination of 
European powers against England; or whether, as a 
third possibility, England could succeed in isolating 
Russia and in obtaining an ally for herself. It is 
not extravagant to suppose that it was to make this 
third possibility a probability that Palmerston has- 
tened to make friends with a man whom he could not 



PALMERSTON. 167 

have trusted, and whose cruelty and despotism he 
must have loathed. It was impossible for England to 
look for any other ally. Russia, Austria, and Prussia 
were wild against England, regarding her as the great 
stronghold of constitutional principles, and believing 
that to her encouragement was due the revolutionary 
outbreak of 1848. The immunity of England herself 
from disorder did not open their eyes to see that it 
was their own misgovernment which had produced 
revolution. It only rendered them the more furious, 
as they believed that England had preached insurrec- 
tion, while other Governments bore its penalties. It 
was touch-and-go in the first year of Napoleon III.'s 
reign whether he would try to put himself at the head 
of a European combination against us, or whether he 
would become our ally and fight one of the other 
Powers. He certainly believed that war was neces- 
sary in order to divert the attention of France from 
domestic politics, to conciliate the army, and thus on 
both sides to consolidate his own position. The 
almost universal feeling in England was that he was 
going to fight us. The common opinion was that 
the new Emperor's first thought would be to avenge 
Waterloo. By 1853, however, Louis Napoleon had 
decided not to fight us, but to fight with us against 
Russia. This was due more to Palmerston than to 
any other Englishman. 

Greville reports a conversation early in 1853 between 
himself and Comte de Flahault (afterwards French 
ambassador in London), who had just returned from 
Paris, where he had been in constant communication 
with the Emperor. Flahault said that the rancor and 
insolence against England on the part of Austria, 
Russia, and Prussia, were almost inconceivable; he 
added that Louis Napoleon had had offered to him in 
the first year of his reign a position which it had been 



168 VICTORIA. 

the object of his uncle's life to attain, — the leadership 
of a European league against us; that he decided to 
decline these flattering overtures, and to consolidate 
his alliance with England. Flahault went on to say 
that he had supported Louis Napoleon in this deter- 
mination, and had represented to him that the North- 
ern Powers had long withheld any recognition of his 
Imperial position ; whereas England had at once recog- 
nized him, and that if she had not done so, probably 
the acknowledgment of the other Powers would have 
been still farther delayed. Flahault represented to 
Greville that, greatly to his surprise, the Emperor 
had wholly concurred in this view. 

It is needless to say that the importance of this 
conversation is not derived from its truth, but from 
its representing what Louis Napoleon wished to be 
believed in England in the spring of 1853. He was 
strongly desirous for his own purposes of the English 
alliance, and knew that it was the only one he could 
hope for at that time in Europe. So far from declin- 
ing flattering proposals from the Czar, his vanity had 
just been bitterly wounded by the absolute refusal of 
the Russian monarch to greet him as ^' mon frere.^'^ 

There can be little doubt that Palmerston availed 
himself of the Emperor's isolated position in Europe, 
and "captured" him as an ally of England. It was 
the wish to secure him more surely that made Pal- 
merston endeavor in 1852-3 to promote a marriage 
between Louis Napoleon and the Queen's niece, the 
Princess Adelaide of Hohenlohe. There was a defi- 
nite proposal made to bring this about, the Emperor 
stating that his wish was to reserrer les liens entre les 
deux pays. The offer was declined by the Queen on 
behalf of her niece, on the ground of the latter's youth 
and inexperience. In 1854, another matrimonial pro- 
ject between the two families was started with the 



PALMERSTON. 169 

same object, between Princess Mary of Cambridge and 
Prince Jerome Napoleon. Malmesbury heard of it, 
and said he hoped it was not true, for the sake of the 
Princess ; but it was strongly pressed by Palmerston 
on the Queen, and was only put an end to by the 
Princess's absolute refusal to listen to it. 

If Palmerston ever believed in the Emperor's fidelity 
to the English alliance, he did not do so perma- 
nently. ^ All through the negotiations which finally 
led up to the Crimean War, Palmerston and his coad- 
jutor at Constantinople, Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, 
urged on his country, not only to war, but to imme- 
diate war. Palmerston knew his man. It was Louis 
Napoleon's present purpose in 1853 and 1854 to fight 
on our side; England's policy, in Lord Palmerston's 
view, was to clinch the matter before he had turned 
against us. 

When Palmerston was dismissed in 1851, his 
defence of himself in the House of Commons at the 
opening of the Session of 1852 was such a complete 
failure that people went about saying "Palmerston 
is smashed." But the epithet was misapplied. The 
Government of which he had been the life and soul 
was sniashed. In less than three weeks' time from 
the debate on his dismissal, the Government was 
defeated, and the Russell Administration resigned. 
Palmerston wrote to his brother : " Dear William, — 
I have had my tit-for-tat with John Russell, and I 
turned him out on Friday last. " Lord Derby formed 
a Government which he invited Lord Palmerston to 
join. The offer was declined, but, as already pointed 
out, Palmerston continued practically to direct our 
foreign policy. The Conservative Government was 
of very short duration. Before the year was out, Mr. 

1 See letter from Lord Palmerston to Lord Clarendon, vol. ii. 
p. 127, Ashley's " Life of Palmerston/' 



170 VICTORIA. 

Disraeli's Budget was defeated, the Government re- 
signed, and Lord Aberdeen became the head of a 
Coalition Government formed by a union of the 
Whigs with the Peelites. In this Government, Lord 
Palmerston was Home Secretary. Greville mentions 
that when the Queen went to Scotland in 1853, she 
desired that Lord Granville should be the Minister-in- 
Attendance, because she did not wish for the presence 
of the Home Secretary at Balmoral. But this feeling 
was not of long duration. Lord Clarendon, the new 
Foreign Secretary, labored diligently to change it. 
He told the Queen everything he could likely to make 
her regard Palmerston in a more favorable light, and 
showed her notes and memoranda by him calculated 
to please her. Lord Aberdeen also used his influence 
in the same direction. The Queen is never implac- 
able, and always ready to recognize good service, and 
before the autumn was out Palmerston took his turn 
as Minister-in-Attendance on the Queen at Balmoral. 
An anecdote is told, illustrative of his continued 
absorption in foreign politics, although he was now 
Home Secretary. The Queen was much interested in 
some strikes and labor troubles that were taking 
place in the North of England, and asked Palmerston 
for details about them which, as Home Secretary, he 
might be expected to know. However, she found him 
absolutely without information. " One morning, after 
previous inquiries, she said to him, ' Pray, Lord Pal- 
merston, have you any news ? ' To which he replied, 
' No, Madam, I have heard nothing; but it seems 
certain that the Turks have crossed the Danube ! ' " 
Palmerston was at the Home Office during the out- 
break of cholera in 1854. His measures against it 
were said to have been conceived in the spirit of 
treating Heaven as if it were a Foreign Power. 
Palmerston really directed the foreign policy of 



PALMERSTON. Ill 

England from the Home Office during the year which 
led up to the Crimean War. When the Government 
refused to take his view, he resigned, ostensibly 
because he did not like Lord John Russell's Reform 
Bill ; really because when the Turks refused to accept 
the Vienna note, the majority of the Cabinet wished 
to leave them to their fall. Palmerston took an 
exactly opposite line, and urged the entry of the allied 
French and English fleets into the Black Sea, which 
really amounted to an act of war. As soon as he got 
his own way he rejoined the Government. As some 
excuse was necessary to the outer world, he had said 
he was not prepared to sit out debates on the Reform 
Bill in the House of Commons at "Azs time of life.''^ 
Clarendon said that no one had ever before heard him 
acknowledge that he had a time of life. 

The Queen went heartily with Palmerston in his 
war policy. She was convinced of the justice of the 
Russian War, and that it could not have been avoided. 
Her intense interest in its progress will be described 
in the coming chapter. It is sufficient here to say 
that her former feeling of hostility to Palmerston was 
very much softened by seeing the whole-hearted devo- 
tion with which he threw himself into the success of 
the British arms. As is well known, the events of 
the war made Palmerston Prime Minister. She gave 
him her entire confidence in that capacity. On the 
signing of the Treaty of Peace in April, 1856, she 
bestowed upon him the Order of the Garter, as a 
special and public token of her appreciation of his 
zealous and able services to his country. 

There was no love lost between Palmerston and 
Lord John Russell. In 1857-58, there was great 
uneasiness in the ranks of the Whigs, lest these two 
should never be able to overcome their mutual hostil- 
ity. Lady William Russell said of them at this time, 



172 VICTORIA. 

"They have shaken hands and embraced, and hate 
each other more than ever." However, by degrees 
the stronger nature dominated the weaker, and from 
1859 till 1865, when Palmerston died, Lord John may 
be said to have danced to Palmerston's piping. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

PEACE AND WAR. 

The year 1851 was memorable to the Queen, for it 
brought the opening of the Great Exhibition, the 
crown of success to prolonged efforts made by the 
Prince against all kinds of opposition and misrepre- 
sentation. When first the project was mooted, hardly 
any one had a good word to say for it. Members of 
Parliament in the House of Commons prayed that hail 
and lightning might be sent from heaven to destroy 
it; it was bound to be a financial failure; it would 
ruin Hyde Park; it would bring into London every 
desperado and bad character in Europe. Its actual 
success was beyond all anticipation, and was only 
heightened by the croaking which had preceded it. 
The Queen's delight knew no bounds, for she felt not 
only that the whole thing was a magnificent success, 
but that it was owing to the Prince that it was so, 
and therefore was of the nature of a personal triumph 
for him. The Queen wrote about the opening cere- 
mony as "the great and glorious first of May, the 
proudest and happiest day ... of my happy life." 
In her journal she wrote : — 

" May 1. The great event has taken place; a complete and beautiful 
triumph ; a glorious and touching sight, — one which I shall ever be 
proud of for my beloved Albert and my country. . . . Yes ; it is a day 
which makes my heart swell with pride and glory and thankfulness." 

The only event with which she felt she could com- 
pare it was the coronation; "but this day's festival 
was a thousand times superior. " The effect produced 
on her as the view of the interior burst upon her, she 
speaks of as — 



174 VICTORIA. 

"Magical, so vast, so glorious, so touching. One felt — as so many- 
did whom I have since spoken to — filled with devotion, more so than 
by any service I have ever heard. The tremendous cheers, the joy ex- 
pressed in every face, the immensity of the building . . . the organ 
(with 200 instruments and 600 voices, which sounded like nothing), and 
my beloved husband the author of this ' Peace Festival ': ... all this 
was moving indeed, and it was and is a day to live forever." 

It is interesting to compare this account by Her 
Majesty of her own emotion at the opening of the 
exhibition with an account of how she impressed a 
spectator. Dr. Stanley (afterwards Dean Stanley) 
wrote in a private letter : — 

" I never had so good a view of the Queen before, and never saw her 
look so thoroughly regal. She stood in front of the chair turning 
round, first to one side and then to the other, with a look of power and 
pride, flushed with a kind of excitement which I never witnessed in any 
other human countenance." 

There were said to have been 34,000 people in the 
building on the opening day, and nearly a million on 
the line of route. The Queen, with her husband and 
eldest son and daughter, drove through this huge 
multitude with no other guard than one of honor and 
some policemen who were there, not so much to keep 
order as to aid the crowd to keep it for themselves. 
The Home Secretary reported to the Queen the next 
day that there had not been a single accident, nor had 
there been a single case of misconduct of any kind 
calling for the interference of the police. It was a 
magnificent object-lesson on the advantages of order 
springing out of liberty. Foreigners present were 
deeply impressed by the good behavior of the crowd, 
and also by its loyalty. Jacob Ominum described a 
dispute he overheard between a German and a French- 
man as to whether in England loyalty was a principle 
or a passion. His own comment was that it was both, 
— a principle even when the Crown behaves badly ; 
" but let it treat the people well, and this quiet prin- 



PEACE AND WAR. 175 

ciple becomes a headlong passion, swelling into such 
enthusiasm as the Frenchman saw when he jotted 
down in his notebook, ' In England loyalty is a 
passsion. ' " 

The Duke of Wellington shared with the Royal 
Family the honors of the day. He was accompanied, 
according to Lord Palmerston, by a running fire of 
applause from the men, and of waving of handker- 
chiefs and kissing of hands from the women. It used 
to be said that people went to the exhibition as much 
to see the Duke of Wellington, ^ who was a frequent 
visitor, as for any other purpose. The total num- 
ber of visitors to the exhibition during the time it 
remained open was more than 6,000,000. An old 
Cornish woman, Mary Keslynack, not wishing to trust 
herself on a railway, walked to London to see the 
exhibition and the Queen. Her Majesty notes in her 
diary the fact that the old lady's wish was gratified. 
She "was at the door to see me, — a most hale old 
woman, who was near crying at my looking at her." 

But this " Peace Festival " could not avert the war- 
cloud that was hanging over England. It is no part 
of the scheme of this little volume to discuss the 
policy of the Crimean War, but only to relate the 
Queen's part in it, and her intense interest in it. 
Even this can only be very briefly and inadequately 
sketched. Some idea of the labor devolving upon a 
conscientious Sovereign in times of national crisis 

1 The Duke of "Wellington died in September, 1852, deeply mourned 
by the Queen and her husband. The Qvieen wrote to her uncle, " You 
will mourn with us over the loss we and the whole nation have experi- 
enced in the death of the dear and great Duke of Wellington. . . . He 
was the pride, and the good genius, as it were, of this country, the most 
loyal and devoted subject, and the stanchest supporter the Crown ever 
had. He was to us a true friend and most valuable adviser. . . . We 
shall soon stand sadly alone. Aberdeen is almost the only personal 
friend of that kind left to us. Melbourne, Peel, Liverpool, now the 
Duke, all gone ! " 



176 VICTORIA. 

may be gathered from the fact that the papers at 
Windsor relating to the Eastern Question and the 
Crimean War, covering the period between 1853 and 
1857, amount to no fewer than fifty folio volumes. 

The Queen, it will be remembered, had entertained 
the Emperor Nicholas at Windsor in 1844, and a very 
favorable personal impression had been made on both 
sides. Nicholas had then had a conversation with 
Peel and Aberdeen on the condition of the " Sick 
Man," as the Czar called Turkey, and the prospective 
disposition of his effects. The Czar and the English 
Ministers signed a memorandum favorable to the 
claims of Russia to protect Christians in Turkish 
dominions. Nicholas left England with the impres- 
sion that he had considerably reduced the antagonism 
between England and Russia on the Turkish question. 
Aberdeen was now Prime Minister, and the Czar 
believed the moment to be favorable for translating 
into action the scheme which he had laid before the 
English Ministers in 1844. Moreover he was doubt- 
less under the impression that England's fighting 
days were over, and that, therefore, whether England 
liked the aggression of Russia in the East or not, she 
would never resist it by force of arms. During the 
negotiations which preceded the war, the Czar took 
the unusual course of addressing an autograph letter 
to the Queen, expressing surprise that any difference 
should have arisen between himself and the English 
Government, and calling upon the Queen's "wisdom " 
and " good faith " to arbitrate between them. The 
Queen immediately sent the Czar's letter to Lord 
Aberdeen, as well as a draft of her reply for his 
approval. Count Nesselrode was very desirous of 
learning from our ambassador in St. Petersburg if he 
knew the tenor of the Queen's reply. He answered 
in the negative, but added, "These correspondences 



PEACE AND WAR. 177 

between Sovereigns are not regular according to our 
constitutional notions; but all I can say is, that if 
Her Majesty were called upon to write upon the East- 
ern affair, she would not require her Ministers' assist- 
ance. The Queen understands these questions as well 
as they do." 

The Cabinet were by no means united in their 
policy. Aberdeen believed in Nicholas, and was for 
peace ; Palmerston believed in the Turks, and was for 
war.i Clarendon was the mediator between the two. 
At first the Queen and her husband were decidedly 
sympathetic with Aberdeen's policy. They fully 
acknowledged that the "ignorant, barbarian, and 
despotic yoke of the Mussulman " had been a curse to 
Europe, and agreed with Lord Aberdeen that the 
Turkish system was "radically vicious and inhuman." 
Against this view Palmerston exerted all his strength. 
Little by little the war fever, fanned by him and 
favored by events, grew fiercer and fiercer. It spared 
neither the palace nor the cottage, and presently there 
was hardly a voice raised in England for peace except 
those of Bright and Cobden; and their influence was 
weakened by the belief that they would be against all 
war under all circumstances. There was a very 
general impression in the country that if Palmerston 
had been at the Foreign Office no war would have been 
necessary. Certainly experience forces the convic- 
tion that the peace-at-any-price party, when in power, 
is almost certain to land the country in war ; but in 
this particular instance it appears probable that Pal- 
merston, having secured the French alliance, thought 
the moment for fighting favorable, and therefore 
forced on the war ; and that he would have done so 

1 The only criticism ever made by Palmerston on the Turks was that 
it was impossible to expect much energy from a people who wore no 
heels to their shoes ! 

12 



178 VICTORIA. 

equally from the Foreign Office as from the Home 
Office. His whole attention and interest were centred 
on foreign affairs, and there was an excellent under- 
standing between him and Lord Clarendon, who was 
Foreign Secretary. 

It is needless to say that the Queen was thoroughly 
convinced before war was declared that it could not 
have been avoided, that our cause was just, and that 
the claim of Russia to protect the Christian, subjects of 
Turkey was a hypocritical cloak to her aggression and 
ambition, and that her real object was to seize Constan- 
tinople and the command of the entrance between the 
Black Sea and Mediterranean, with an eye ultimately 
to India and the possessions of England in Asia. 

The Queen and Prince were exceedingly indignant 
with the King of Prussia for withholding his support 
and sympathy from England. He was a man of weak 
and excitable disposition, and very much influenced 
by his brother-in-law, the Czar. The King's brother, 
however, then known as the Prince of Prussia (after- 
wards the Emperor William), and his son. Prince 
Frederic William (afterwards the husband of the 
Princess Royal), strongly sympathized with England; 
and this circumstance naturally strengthened the 
warm friendship already existing between them and 
the English Royal Family. How distant at this time 
must have seemed the realization of Prince Albert's 
and Stockmar's dream of a united Germany, and of 
a political alliance between England and Germany. 
The Prince, however, never lost sight of his goal. 
He wrote to his stepmother at Coburg, who was 
strongly Russian in her sympathies, "If there were 
a Germany and a G-erman Sovereign in Berlin, this 
[the war] could never have happened. " 

When once war was declared (March, 1854), the 
Queen threw her whole heart and soul into the cause. 



PEACE AND WAR. 179 

She wished she had sons old enough to go, two with 
the army, two with the navy. Lord Aberdeen had 
sanctioned the setting apart of a Day of Humiliation 
and Prayer for the success of our arms by sea and 
land. The Queen very strongly and quite properly 
deprecated the use of the expression a Day of Humili- 
ation. She condemned this as savoring of hypocrisy. 
She believed her policy to have been directed by un- 
selfishness and honesty, and therefore felt the only 
appropriate prayer would be one expressive of our 
deep thankfulness for all the benefits we had enjoyed, 
and entreating the protection of the Almighty for our 
forces on sea and land. She equally objected to 
imprecations against our enemies, and suggested the 
use of a form already in the Prayer Book, " To be used 
before a Fight at Sea." 

As the war went on, the Queen and the elder 
Princesses stimulated the activity of other women 
throughout England in helping to supply comforts for 
the wounded, and various articles of warm clothing 
to be distributed among the troops. The Queen also 
took a keen maternal interest in the establishment of 
a fund, afterwards called the Patriotic Fund, to pro- 
vide for the orphans of those who were killed in the 
war. She neglected no opportunity of showing her 
interest in her troops, giving them in person a hearty 
" Godspeed " on their departure, and a cordial wel- 
come on their return, and decorating with her own 
hands the surviving heroes of the various enga.ge- 
ments. Our soldiers fought with all the old British 
valor and tenacity, and were successful in every great 
engagement; but there was a most frightful break- 
down in the commissariat and stores departments of 
the army, and in organization generally. No Welling- 
ton or Marlborough was discovered among our gen- 
erals, and no Nelson or Duncan among our admirals. 



180 VICTORIA. 

The only notable personalities revealed to the nation 
by the Crimean War were those of Florence Nightin- 
gale and Dr. W. H. Russell, and the only new piece 
of military knowledge, the use of women and special 
correspondents in war time. Miss Nightingale and a 
band of other ladies, all trained nurses, were sent out 
at the instance of Mr. Sidney Herbert to Constanti- 
nople, and at once proceeded to take charge of the 
great hospital at Scutari ; they arrived just in time to 
receive the wounded from the battle of Balaklava. 
Before their arrival all had been chaos and hugger- 
mugger, which Miss Nightingale's "voice of velvet 
and will of steel " soon changed to order, and as much 
comfort and solace as were possible in such a place. 
Her gentle tenderness and compassion aroused a pas- 
sion of chivalrous worship in the roughest soldiers. 
One of them said afterwards to Mr. Sidney Herbert, 
" She would speak to one and another, and nod and 
smile to many more, but she could not do it to all, 
you know, — we lay there in hundreds, — but we could 
kiss her shadow as it fell, and lay our heads on the 
pillow again, content." 

The regular red-tapists of the War Office of course 
opposed the sending out of Miss Nightingale and the 
other ladies ; there is no record in the Prince Consort's 
Life Avhether he and the Queen favored her mission at 
the outset or not. But it is certain that they, with 
the rest of the nation, very speedily recognized the 
value of the work she was doing. Her letters from 
the seat of war were among their sources of informa- 
tion, and were eagerly scanned by the Queen and her 
husband. After the war was over, in the autumn of 
1856, she visited the Queen at Balmoral. The entry 
in the Prince's diary is: "She put before us all the 
defects of our present military hospital system. We 
are much pleased with her ; she is extremely modest. " 



PEACE AND WAR. 181 

Is it captious to wonder what they had expected her 
to be, and if they were surprised to find that she was 
not a Madame Sans-Gene ? 

The letters of Dr. W. H. Russell in The Times first 
revealed to the nation the frightful breakdown in 
our military organization. The special correspondent 
became, from the date of the Crimean War, a force to 
be reckoned with. Instead of the cut-and-dried offi- 
cial despatches, concealing often more than revealing 
the truth, and intended to lay before the public only 
just so much of the facts as the military authorities 
thought it good for them to know, the special corre- 
spondent publishes for all the world to read, a vivid 
daily narrative of facts in which blunders and incom- 
petence, when they exist, are given quite as much 
prominence as good generalship and victory. If Eng- 
land was disappointed at the evidence given of her 
want of efficient military organization, Russia had 
much more cause to be so. Russia had put her whole 
strength into her armaments; she was nothing if not 
a great military power ; but she was everywhere unsuc- 
cessful. One of the most dramatic incidents during 
the war was the death of the Czar, on March 2, 
1855. It was said that his disease was influenza, fol- 
lowed by congestion of the lungs; but some people 
thought he might have been said to have died of a 
broken heart. Punches, cartoon, " General Fevrier 
turned traitor," showing Death, in a general's uni- 
form, laying his icy hand on his victim, will long be 
remembered. 

The war fever which had fired the whole of England 
at the beginning of the campaign perhaps led people 
to expect more than was possible from the arm}^ 
There was a bitter cry of anger and disappointment 
that our military successes in the field were not quickly 
followed up and taken advantage of by our generals, 



182 VICTORIA. 

and especially that the sufferings of our soldiers were 
needlessly aggravated by the waste, incompetence, and 
utter muddle reigning over the distribution of the food 
and stores. Lord Aberdeen, the Prime Minister, was 
blamed; he had been dragged into the war, and never 
really cordially approved it, it was said. Mr. Glad- 
stone was blamed ; he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, 
and thought it his duty to provide the war budget out 
of income ; " penny wise and pound foolish " was the 
comment on this. War is one of the things that can- 
not be done cheap. These and other Ministers who 
were attacked could defend themselves in Parliament; 
but the phials of public wrath were more especially 
directed against the Prince, who for months bore 
every kind of imputation and false accusation poured 
out against him in the press, without having any 
opportunity of self-defence. Even before the outbreak 
of the war, it had been said that he was completely 
anti-English in his sympathies; that we, therefore, 
had a traitor in our midst, able and willing to use his 
position on the steps of the Throne to weaken and 
humiliate England. So diligently were these false 
reports circulated in the press and by word of mouth 
that they were the common topic of conversation all 
over England. At one time a report was current, and 
was actually believed, that the Prince had been 
impeached for high treason and sent to the Tower. 
Thousands of people assembled outside to see his 
entrance. If this had been the condition of the public 
mind before the war began, it is not difficult to 
imagine that the disease of suspicion and distrust 
broke out again after the beginning of hostilities, 
when there was so much to criticise in the organiza- 
tion of the War Department at home. The public 
wanted a victim, some one to wreak their anger upon, 
and the Prince served them for this purpose. Even 



PEACE AND WAR. 183 

SO well-informed a politician, and so able a man as 
Mr. Roebuck, believed, and openly said to the Duke 
of Newcastle, the War Minister, that of course every 
one knew that there was a determination " in a high 
quarter " that the Crimean expedition should not suc- 
ceed. The Duke thought that the expression, " a high 
quarter," was directed against himself, and said so. 
"Oh, no," answered Mr. Roebuck, "I mean a much 
higher personage than you ; I mean Prince Albert. " 

The Duke immediately endeavored to remove this 
entirely false impression, and asked Mr. Roebuck if 
he were not aware that the Queen had been ill with 
anxiety about her troops. The reply was that no one 
doubted the Queen's devotion to her country ; that 
when Lord Cardigan was at Windsor, one of the Royal 
children had said to him, " You must hurry back to 
Sebastopol and take it, else it will kill mamma. " Yet 
almost in the same breath Mr. Roebuck maintained 
that the Prince was working behind the Queen's back 
against the efficient organization of the army, in order 
to prevent the success of her troops. 

An expression made use of by the Prince in a public 
speech, towards the close of the Crimean War, June, 
1855, has become historical. He contrasted the auto- 
cratic power of the Czar of Russia, characterized by 
unity of purpose and action, and when desirable by 
secrecy, with the Parliamentary Government of the 
Queen, where every movement of the army or navy, 
and every stage of every diplomatic negotiation are 
publicly proclaimed, and have to be explained and 
defended in Parliament ; and he concluded by saying 
that "Constitutional Government was on its trial, '^ 
and could only come through it triumphantly if the 
country granted a patriotic and indulgent confidence 
to the Ministry. This was twisted by the Prince's 
enemies into an attack on the principles of constitu- 



184 VICTORIA, 

tionalism ; but it really was an appeal to the good 
sense and patriotism of the nation, on which, at 
bottom. Parliamentary Government must rest. 

The Tory and the Radical Press must share the 
blame of the disgraceful attacks made upon the Prince. 
The Queen was bitterly wounded by them. Greville, 
no courtier, as many former extracts prove, said he 
never remembered anything more atrocious and unjust 
than these savage libels. That they had been fostered 
by the hostility between Palmerston and the Prince 
there can be no doubt. One of the lies in circulation 
was that there was a pamphlet giving authentic proofs 
of the Prince's treachery to England, that the Prince 
had bought up all the copies but six, which were in 
Palmerston's possession; whereupon the Prince had 
made his peace with Palmerston, in order to secure 
the continued suppression of the pamphlet. This 
called forth an authoritative denial in the columns of 
The Morning Post from Lord Palmerston. It is prob- 
able that one motive of the Queen in bestowing the 
title of Prince Consort upon her husband in 1857, was 
to give a practical reply to these slanders. It would 
have been well if this had been preceded by an action 
for libel against the most conspicuous of the Prince's 
traducers ; this would have given a chance of the real 
author of the libels being run to earth. 

The alliance with France durina: the Crimean War 
led to the exchange of visits between the two Courts. 
The Queen and her husband were quite captivated by 
the loveliness and charm of the Empress Eugenie, 
and at first thought far better of the Emperor than 
he deserved. He laid himself out with considerable 
adroitness to please the Queen, and succeeded. The 
Emperor and Empress visited the Queen at Windsor 
in April, 1855. During their visit to England a grand 
fete was given in their honor at the Crystal Palace. 



PEACE AND WAR. 185 

The Emperor lived in perpetual dread of assassination, 
and on this occasion he appears to have communicated 
some of his nervous apprehension to the Queen, who 
wrote in her diary : — 

" Nothing could have succeeded better. Still I own I felt anxious as 
we passed through the multitude of people who, after all, were very 
close to us. I felt, as I walked on the Emperor's arm, that I was pos- 
sibly a protection for him. All thoughts of nervousness for myself 
were passed. I only thought of him ; and so it is, Albert says, when 
one forgets one's self, one loses this great and foolish nervousness." 

Her Majesty's courage and its source are well 
exemplified in this passage. 

The return visit of the Queen to Paris took place in 
the autumn of the same year. She was accompanied 
by her husband and the Prince of Wales and the 
Princess Royal. Some characteristic incidents con- 
nected with the Queen's visit to Paris ought to be 
mentioned, especially that, although overflowing with 
friendliness and good feeling to the Emperor, she 
thought it her duty to explain to him that nothing 
could shake her kindly relations with the Orleans 
family. She told him that she had been intimate 
with them when they were in power, and she could 
not drop them when they were in adversity. Possibly 
Louis Napoleon remembered this conversation in 1870, 
when he himself was an exile in England, and expe- 
rienced the benefit of the Queen's faithfulness to her 
friends when they were in trouble. In this same 
conversation he opened the subject of his confiscation 
of the property of the Orleans family, and the Queen 
gave frank expression to her own views on the subject. 
The Queen remarks in her diary : — 

" I was very anxious to get out what I had to say on the subject, 
and not to have this untouchable ground between us. Stockmar, so 
far back as last winter, suggested and advised that this course should 
be pursued." 

After these visits letters were frequently inter- 



186 VICTORIA. 

changed between the two Sovereigns. In one of his, 
Louis Napoleon appears to have plumed himself on 
the advantages of an absolute monarchy, especially in 
conducting negotiations with other States, uncon- 
trolled power of decision vested in the Sovereign 
alone, and so on. To which the Queen rejoined, 
" There is, however, another side to this picture, in 
which I consider I have an advantage which your 
Majesty has not. Your policy runs the risk of remain- 
ing unsupported by the nation," and you may be 
exposed " to the dangerous alternative of either having 
to impose it upon them against their will, or of having 
suddenly to alter your course abroad, or even, perhaps, 
to encounter grave resistance. I, on the other hand, 
can allow my policy free scope to work oat its own 
consequences, certain of the steady and consistent 
support of my people, who, having had a share in 
determining my policy, feel themselves to be identified 
with it." Here, too, there was food for reflection on 
the Emperor's part in after years. 

The Royal children greatly enjoyed their visit to 
Paris, and it is said that when the time came for 
their departure the Prince of Wales begged the 
Empress to get permission for him and the Princess 
Royal to be left behind to prolong their visit. "The 
Empress said she was afraid this would be impossible, 
as the Queen and the Prince would not be able to do 
without them ; " to which the boy replied, " Not do 
without us ! I don't fancy that, for there are six 
more of us at home, and they don't want us." 

Very soon after the return of the Court to Balmoral 
(10th Sept., 1855) the Queen and Prince had the 
intense satisfaction of hearing of the fall of Sebastopol, 
an event which brought the end of the war within 
measurable distance. Peace was concluded in the 
following spring. 



PEACE AND WAR. 187 

It was a source of great pride to the Queen to know 
that England was stronger at the end of the Crimean 
War than at the beginning. The country had learnt 
by its mistakes, and was not exhausted by its sacri- 
fices. The Indian Mutiny, which quickly succeeded 
the Crimean War, found England more capable of 
dealing with it than if it had taken place earlier. 
This was fully recognized by the Prince Consort. If 
those who had accused him of an anti-English spirit 
could have read his private letters they would have 
had their eyes opened. He wrote to Stockmar August, 
1857: — 

" The events in India are a heavy domestic calamity for England. 
Yet, just because of this, there is less reason to despair, as the English 
people surpass all others in Europe in energy and vigor of character : 
and for strong men misfortune serves as a school for instruction and 
improvement." 

The autumn of 1855 brought with it two interesting 
domestic events for the Royal Family. The new 
house at Balmoral was occupied for the first time; 
and, what was much more important, a visit from 
Prince Frederick William of Prussia resulted in his 
engagement to the Princess Royal. She was then 
under fifteen years of age, and it was thought best 
that there should be no formal betrothal, and no 
public announcement until after the Princess's con- 
firmation in the following spring. The first break 
into the child-life of a family, by the marriage of one 
of its members, is always an event that awakens many 
emotions. The Queen and Prince were thoroughly 
satisfied, and had cause to be, with their future son- 
in-law; but the prospect of parting with their eldest 
child was a bitter pill. The Prussian Prince was 
heartily in love, and went on year after year, till his 
tragic death in 1888, becoming more and more a lover 
and friend to his wife, whom he constantly spoke of 



188 VICTORIA. 

as " the ablest woman in Europe. " Lady Bloomfield, 
whose husband was, in 1855, English Ambassador in 
Berlin, gives an account of the announcement there 
by the King at a State dinner of the engagement 
between his nephew and the English Princess. Lady 
Bloomfield says that the Prince was in such high 
spirits, and looked so excessively happy, it was a 
pleasure to see him. On their arrival in Germany, 
shortly after their marriage, he telegraphed to the 
Queen at Windsor, "The whole Royal Family is 
enchanted with my wife. — F. W. " On the occasion 
of the Prince of Wales's wedding, in 1863, the Prince 
of Prussia was overflowing with praise of his wife. 
Bishop Wilberforce noted in his diary on this occa- 
sion, "I was charmed with the Prince of Prussia, 
and the warmth of his expressions as to his wife. 
' Bishop, ' he said, ' with me it has been one long 
honeymoon. ' " 

The story of the betrothal, and how it was asso- 
ciated with the giving and receiving of a piece of 
white heather, a proverbial emblem of good luck, is 
very prettily told by Her Majesty in " Leaves from 
the Journal in the Highlands." The chief anxiety 
the parents had in the matter was on account of the 
Princess's extreme youth ; but her intellect and char- 
acter were unusually developed, and she had, what so 
often accompanies fine intellect, a child-like inno- 
cence and purity of heart which specially endeared 
her to all in her home circle. Prince Albert wrote 
at once to Stockmar to tell him the news : " Victoria, " 
he wrote, "is greatly excited; still, all goes smoothly 
and prudently. The Prince is really in love, and the 
little lady does her best to please him. " 

The engagement was not well received by an import- 
ant section of the English Press. So little could the 
writer of the articles read the future, that Prussia 



PEACE AND WAR. 189 

was sneered at "as a paltry German dynasty," Prince 
Frederick William was described as being in " igno- 
minious attendance" on his "Imperial Master" the 
Czar, and it was predicted that the Princess would 
become anti-English in feeling, and also, with not 
much consistency, that she would be sent back to 
England at no distant date, "an exile and a fugitive." 
The ignorance of this attack robbed it of its poignancy. 
Prince Frederick William and his father were strongly 
in accord with the policy of England during the 
Crimean War, and consequently very much out of 
favor at their own Court and in St. Petersburg. 

Prince Albert had always taken the keenest interest 
in directing the education of his eldest daughter, and 
the fact that she was probably destined to occupy in 
Prussia a position somewhat similar to his own in 
England, strengthened the already strong bonds of 
union between them. From the time of her engage- 
ment he worked with her daily at historical subjects, 
and spared no pains to equip her well for her future 
duties. She translated important political pamphlets 
from German into English under his direction, and 
he took undisguised fatherly pride in her capacity and 
in her widening interests in life. An accident, which 
might have had very serious consequences, happened 
to the Princess in 1856, which illustrated her self- 
control and reliance on her father. As she was seal- 
ing a letter she set fire to the muslin sleeve of her 
dress, and her right arm was very badly burned ; the 
wound was terrible to look at, as the muslin was 
burnt into the flesh ; it must have caused very severe 
pain, but the Princess never lost her presence of mind 
or habitual thoughtfulness for others. She did not 
utter a cry, and said: "Don't frighten mamma, send 
for papa first. " Her marriage took place on January 
25th, 1858. She was a very youthful bride, having 



190 VICTORIA. 

only lately completed her seventeenth year. Her first 
child, the present Emperor William 11. , was born on 
January 27th, 1859. His birth nearly cost the life of 
his young mother. The Queen's daughter has not 
had a bed of roses in her adopted country, any more 
than the Queen's husband had a bed of roses here. 
But in both cases cruel misrepresentation on the part 
of a section of the public was more than compensated 
by the loving appreciation and generous confidence 
which marriage brought them. The Princess Royal 
and the Prince Consort each had many a drop of 
bitterness in their cup; but while he lived. Prince 
Frederick William was her faithful worshipper, just 
as the Queen was and is of the Prince Consort. 

On the day of the Princess Royal's marriage the 
entry in the Queen's Diary runs: — 

" The second most eventful day of my life as regards feelings. I felt 
as if I were being married over again myself, only much more nervous, 
for I had not that blessed feeling which I had then, which raises and 
supports one, of giving myself up for life to him whom I loved and 
worshipped — then and ever ! " 

Speaking of the ceremony in the Chapel Royal, St. 
James's, Her Majesty adds : — 

"The drums and trumpets played marches, and the organ played 
others as the procession approached and entered ; . . . the effect was 
thrilling and striking as you heard the music gradually coming nearer 
and nearer. Fritz looked pale and much agitated, but behaved with the 
greatest self-possession, bowing to us, and then kneeling down in a most 
devotional manner. Then came the bride's procession, and our darling 
riower looked very touching and lovely, with such an innocent, confi- 
dent, and serious expression. It was beautiful to see her kneeling with 
Fritz, their hands joined. . . . My last fear of being overcome vanished 
on seeing Vicky's quiet, calm, and composed manner. . . . Dearest 
Albert took her by the hand to give her away, my beloved Albert (who, 
I saw, felt so strongly), which reminded me vividly of having in the 
same way, proudly, tenderly, confidently, most lovingly, knelt by him, 
on this very same spot, and having our hands joined there." 

The Queen and the Prince Consort both recalled the 
series of important Royal marriages between German 



PEACE AND WAR. 191 

Princes and English Princesses, beginning with the 
marriage of Princess Charlotte, heiress to the throne, 
to Prince Leopold in 1816, then their own in 1840, 
and, lastly, of their child to the heir to the throne of 
Prussia, in 1858. The Prince Consort wrote on the 
wedding-day to the faithful Stockmar : — 

" My heart impels me to send you a line to-day, as I cannot shake 
you by the hand. In a few hours our child will be a wedded wife ! a 
work in which you have had a large share, and, I know, will take a 
cordial interest. It is just eighteen years since you subscribed my mar- 
riage contract, and were present in the same Chapel Royal at my union 
with Victoria. Uncle Leopold, whom you, now forty-two years ago, 
accompanied to London on the occasion of his marriage, will, with my- 
self, be one of the bride's supporters. These reminiscences must excite 
a special feeling within you to-day, with which I hope is coupled the 
conviction that we all gratefully revere in you a dear friend and wise 
counsellor." 

On a bitter winter day, February 2nd, 1858, the 
Queen and Prince bade farewell to their darling child 
on her departure for Germany. The bride's exclama- 
tion had been, " I think it will kill me to take leave 
of dear papa." Those who witnessed her departure 
through London and at Gravesend spoke of her floods 
of tears, and many a sympathizing thought went with 
the daughter of England to her new home. 



CHAPTER XIY. 



A NATION OF SHOPKEEPERS. 



England had hardly drawn breath from the Crimean 
War when she was face to face with the Indian 
Mutiny. The first symptoms of the outbreak were 
observed in February, 1857. By the summer of that 
year it had attained appalling dimensions ; but the 
gravity of the calamity brought out the tenacity of the 
English character, and it was gradually realized by 
the country that no effort and no sacrifice would be 
too great in order to preserve intact our hold upon 
India. The Queen realized this at a very early period, 
and urged upon the Prime Minister the undesirability 
of reducing our military establishments at a moment 
when India might require all our strength. No 
protracted diplomatic labors, as in the case of the 
Crimean War, were thrown upon the Sovereign by 
the Indian Mutiny. The Queen's duty was discharged 
by keeping a keen look-out upon the development 
of the Mutiny, by encouraging the despatch of ample 
military reinforcements for India, by cheering the 
civil and military commanders there by her constant 
sympathy and appreciation of their services, and, above 
all, when the Mutiny was finally suppressed, by cast- 
ing the weight of her influence and authority in the 
scale of mercy, and of the policy which gained for 
Lord Canning, the Governor-General, the nickname, 
intended in contempt, but remembered now as a true 
title of honor, of "Clemency Canning." 

Her Majesty wrote to Lord Canning fully approving 
of stern justice being dealt out to all who had been 



A NATION OF SHOPKEEPERS. 193 

guilty either of mutiny or of complicity in the terrible 
outrages against women and children, but strongly 
supporting him in his brave and determined opposi- 
tion to vindictive fury against the natives at large, 
in which too many of the English in India were 
tempted to indulge. 

When the worst of the Mutiny was over, August, 
1858, and an Act had been passed transferring the 
Government of India from the East India Company to 
the Crown, the time had arrived for the issue of a Royal 
Proclamation to the inhabitants of India. The draft 
of this Proclamation reached the Queen when she was 
paying her first visit to her newly married daughter 
in Prussia. It will throw a little light on those who 
think that the function of a Sovereign in a Constitu- 
tional monarchy is simply to indorse everything sub- 
mitted by the Ministers, to learn that the Queen on 
reading this draft felt that neither in spirit nor in 
language was it appropriate to the occasion. Her 
objections were set forth in detail to Lord Malmesbury, 
who was the Minister-in-Attendance, and the follow- 
ing letter was written by the Queen to the Prime 
Minister, Lord Derby ; — 

Babelsbeeg, 15th Aug., 1858. 
The Queen has asked Lord Malmesbury to explain in detail to 
Lord Derby her objections to the draft of the Proclamation for India. 
The Queen would be glad if Lord Derby would write it himself in his 
excellent language, bearing in mind that it is a small Sovereign who 
speaks to more than a hundred millions of Eastern people on assuming 
the direct Government over them, and, after a bloody civil war, giving 
them pledges which her future reign is to redeem, and explaining the 
principles of her Government. Such a document should breathe feel- 
ings of generosity, benevolence, and religious toleration, and point out 
the privileges which the Indians will receive in being placed on an 
equality with the subjects of the British Crown, and the prosperity fol- 
lowing in the train of civilization. 

Lord Malmesbury's memorandum which accompa- 
nied this letter goes more into detail. Referring to 

13 



194 VICTORIA. 

the draft of which Her Majesty had disapproved, Lord 
Malmesbury remarks that she had specially objected 
to the expression that she had the "power of under- 
mining " the Indian religions. "Her Majesty would 
prefer that the subject should be introduced by a 
declaration in the sense that the deep attachment 
which Her Majesty feels to her own religion, and the 
comfort and happiness which she derives from its con- 
solations, will preclude her from any attempt to inter- 
fere with the native religions, and that her servants 
will be directed to act scrupulously in accordance 
with her directions." 

It is impossible to imagine a better example than 
this gives of the value of the influence of a truly 
womanly woman upon political affairs. The amended 
Proclamation gave great satisfaction to Lord Canning, 
and materially aided him in his difficult task of 
conciliation. He wrote : — 

" To the good effect of the words in which religion is spoken of in 
the Proclamation, Lord Canning looks forward with very sanguine 
hope. It is impossible that the justice, charity, and kindliness, as well 
as the true wisdom which mark these words, should not be appreciated." 

If a mere handful of Englishmen are to continue to 
hold the two hundred millions of the various native 
populations of India, they cannot do so by mere brute 
force, but only by convincing the leaders of the people 
that the English Government is actuated by feelings 
of "justice, charity, and kindliness " towards them. 
The Queen's Proclamation produced the best effect in 
India. The Times correspondent, writing upon it, 
said : " Genuineness of Asiatic feeling is always a 
problem, but I have little doubt it is in this in- 
stance tolerably sincere. The people understand an 
' Empress,' and did not understand the Company;" 
he adds that the general opinion among the masses 
was " that the Queen had hanged the Company ! " We 



A NATION OF SHOPKEEPERS. 195 

have here an example of the informal use of the title 
" Empress, " the formal adoption of which caused so 
much excitement and opposition in 1876. It is pos- 
sible, however, that from the time of the passing of 
the Government of India Act, 1858, Mr. Disraeli bore 
it in mind as an addition he would make to the Queen's 
titles when a favorable opportunity offered. In 1858, 
when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, he wrote 
to the Queen on the progress of the Government of 
India Bill through the House of Commons, and said, 
" But it is only the ante-chamber of an imperial palace, 
and your Majesty would do well to deign to consider 
the steps which are now necessary to influence the 
opinions and affect the imaginations of the Indian 
populations. The name of your Majesty ought to be 
impressed upon their native life.''^ 

The immediate carrying out of the scheme here 
hinted at was rendered impossible in consequence of 
the change of Ministry which took place in the follow- 
ing year ; but eighteen years later, when Disraeli was 
Prime Minister, he gave effect to this project as part 
of a large scheme for bringing home to the Sovereign 
and her people in every part of the world that England 
had ceased to be a " little world, a precious stone set 
in the silver sea," and had expanded into a gigantic 
empire. 

But the time for this had not come in 1858 and 
1859, when affairs nearer home became again of 
engrossing interest. 

The years which immediately succeeded the Crimean 
War are full of evidence of the growing distrust of 
Louis Napoleon felt by the Queen and her husband. 
He had succeeded at the beginning of their intercourse 
in producing the impression on them of perfect frank- 
ness ; but by 1859 they had discovered that he was 
" born and bred a conspirator, " and that through all 



196 VICTORIA. 

the changes and vicissitudes of life he would ever be 
scheming and suspicious. Their eyes must have been 
opened to his real character by the quality of the 
people by whom he was served and surrounded. 
Throughout France, with very few exceptions, honest 
men and women held aloof from him. Greville speaks 
of the crowd which formed his Court as being more 
" encanailUes ^' than ever. The Prince Consort saw 
and lamented this, and endeavored to convince him 
that no Sovereign could be great without the aid of 
great Ministers. But great Ministers were not to be 
had for the asking. Louis Napoleon had so little 
confidence in his accredited representatives that in 
matters of first-class importance they were set on one 
side, and the business was conducted by the Emperor 
in person. This was not astonishing, as honest men 
mostly declined to serve him ; he had to do as best he 
could with inferior material, and naturally could not 
rely on it in moments of emergency. 

Little by little the true character of Louis Napoleon 
was revealed to the Queen, and under these circum- 
stances it is easy to understand that though the 
social intercourse between the two Sovereigns was not 
abruptly cut short, yet it became very constrained and 
uneasy. The Queen and Prince paid two visits to 
Cherbourg: the first was in 1857, and was entirely 
private and informal ; the Royal couple were accom- 
panied by six of their children, and the main object 
of the visit was holiday-making: but their diaries and 
letters contain significant observations upon the great 
strength of the Cherbourg fortifications, and the 
Queen, with her habitual openness, said it made her 
" very unhappy " to see the enormous strength and 
size of the forts ; while the Prince, in more diplomatic 
language, says the gigantic strength of the place had 
given him "grave cause for reflection." They went 



A NATION OF SHOPKEEPERS. 197 

home very strongly impressed by the necessity of 
increasing our strength both by sea and land, so that 
it might not compare so very disadvantageously with 
that of our valued ally. Their second visit to Cher- 
bourg was in the following year, 1858, and was a 
grand ceremonial ; they were received by the Emperor 
and Empress in state, nine line-of-battle ships were 
drawn up along the breakwater, and all the ugly forts 
which dominate the harbor belched forth volleys of 
gunpowder in their honor, and also perhaps to demon- 
strate afresh the extent and strength of the fortifica- 
tions. It does not seem to have been a gay visit; the 
Emperor was embarrassed, " houtonne and silent and 
not ready to talk " the Queen wrote, while the Prince 
observed, "Empress looks ill: he is out of humor." 
When the inevitable time for speech-making came, 
and the Prince Consort had to return thanks for the 
toast of the Queen's and his own health. Her Majesty 
writes that it was a dreadful moment, which she hoped 
never to have to go through again. " He did it very 
well, though he hesitated once. I sat shaking, with 
my eyes clones sur la table.'''' The Emperor and 
Empress were both very nervous, and the Queen shook 
so she could not drink her coffee. The reception 
given to the Queen was magnificent and uncomfortable 
in the highest possible degree. One flight of rockets, 
a mere incident in a grand display of fireworks, was 
said to have cost 25,000 francs. From first to last, 
the fete was organized with regard to the highest 
possible degree of expense. The Queen and Prince 
were more than ever impressed that the strength of 
Cherbourg was a menace to England, and called the 
attention of their own Ministers, who were in attend- 
ance, to the obvious necessity for England to look 
more sharply to her coast and naval defences. How 
thankful Her Majesty must have been when the end 



198 VICTORIA. 

of each day's festivity was reached! Even in the 
diary the mere words form a little oasis, " At twenty 
minutes to ten we went below, and read and nearly 
finished that most interesting book, ' Jane Eyre. ' " 

The alarm felt by the Queen and Prince as to the 
hostile intentions of Louis Napoleon towards England 
were fully shared by the nation. After the attempt 
by Orsini, early in 1858, to assassinate the Emperor 
by the explosion of bombs under his carriage as it was 
approaching the Opera House, England was accused 
of having harbored the conspirators, and with having 
thereby encouraged their crime. It was true that 
Orsini had come direct from England, and though this 
did not make England responsible for him, yet some 
irritation on the part of France was quite excusable. 
This expression of irritation, however, passed all 
reasonable bounds. The Emperor received a large 
number of addresses from Colonels in the French 
army congratulating him on his escape ; and these 
addresses, which were published at full in the official 
organ of the French Government, were, in many 
instances, full of clamorous demands for war with 
England. One of these effusions spoke of England as 
"the land of impurity, which contains the haunts of 
monsters which are sheltered by its laws : " another 
requested the Emperor to give the word, and the 
"infamous haunt in which machinations so infernal 
are planned " — that is, London — " should be destroyed 
forever." 

England's answer was the Volunteer movement, 
and the dismissal from office of Lord Palmerston's 
Government, because it was believed to have been too 
subservient to the demands of France. 

The series of events of 1857 and 1858 were a very 
curious episode in our political history. The general 
election of 1857 had been in the nature of a personal 



A NATION OF SHOPKEEPERS. 199 

triumph for Palmerston. The cry had been "Pal- 
merston, and nothing but Palmerston ; " and he had 
carried everything before him. Within the ranks of 
the Liberal party all his leading opponents, Bright 
and Cobden representing the Manchester School, lost 
their seats. But in less than a year the seemingly 
all-powerful Minister was defeated because he had not 
maintained with sufficient dignity the honor and inde- 
pendence of England. "Old Civis Romanus," as he 
had been nicknamed, was said to have retreated igno- 
miniously; the British Lion was depicted with his 
tail between his legs. There was a strong outburst of 
dissatisfaction; for once Palmerston had not been 
sufficiently pugnacious : his Government was swept 
away, and was replaced by that of Lord Derby. 

The Queen and Prince from the first took an im- 
mense interest in the Volunteers ; they had always anx- 
iously watched the relatively small military strength 
of England, and had urged on successive Governments 
the overwhelming importance of not allowing it to 
sink to a level incompatible with national security. 
The spontaneous growth of a great service for internal 
defence gave them, therefore, peculiar satisfaction, as 
affording evidence that at heart the spirit of the 
country was as sound as it had been in the days of the 
Armada. The Queen reviewed the English Volunteers 
in Hyde Park in June, 1860. The cheering was so 
tremendous that Her Majesty was quite overcome. 
She inaugurated the National Rifle Association in 
the following month ; and she reviewed the Scottish 
Volunteers on Arthur's Seat in August of the same 
year. 

It was a splendid sight; 22,000 magnificent men, 
the flower of a hardy and spirited race ; the surround- 
ing amphitheatre of the hillside crowded with a 
cheering multitude : no wonder that the Queen was 



200 VICTORIA, 

thrilled with pride and thankfulness. The Duchess 
of Kent was with her daughter ; the Queen writes that 
she was so delighted, " dear mamma could be present at 
this memorable and never-to-be-forgotten occasion. '^ 
It was the last time they were together at any public 
ceremonial. 

Lord Tennyson interpreted the national feeling by 
his song, " Riflemen, form ! " and the lines — 

" True, we have got such a faithful ally 
That only the Devil can tell what he means " — 

exactly describe the sentiments of most Englishmen 
towards Louis Napoleon. It was said that a foreigner 
expressed surprise at the military spirit displayed at 
one of these Volunteer reviews, and said he had under- 
stood that the English were a nation of shopkeepers. 
A jolly countryman replied, "So they are, Moosoo; 
and these are the boys that keep the shop ! " 

The Volunteer movement has proved no mere flash 
in the pan, caused by a sudden explosion of passing 
irritation. It has grown and strengthened, and now, 
after twenty-six years of existence, it adds more than 
200, 000 men to the internal defences of the country. 
The annual meeting of the National Rifle Association 
has furnished proof to the world that the Volunteer 
force contains a body of skilled marksmen, who, under 
able generalship, might turn the scale in many a 
battle. 



CHAPTER XY. 

THE VALLEY OP THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 

The year 1861 closed the book of the happy wedded 
life of the Queen. The hand of death lay heavy upon 
her, and took from her first her mother, and then her 
husband. The death of her mother was her first very 
great sorrow. Her half-brother, Prince Charles of 
Leiningen, had died in 1856; but his life and hers, 
during his latter years, had lain very much apart, 
and though she mourned him deeply and truly, he had 
not made part of her life, and his death could not 
be to her what the death of her mother was, who had 
watched over her from childhood, and with whom she 
passed part of almost every day; still less could it 
bring the loneliness and desolation in which the 
Queen was left by the death of her husband, "her 
dearest life in life," as she had called him. 

The Duchess of Kent died in March, 1861. There 
is no consolation in being told that such a loss is 
common. It is not common to the heart that has to 
bear it. The Queen felt, as all must feel when death 
takes from them a beloved parent, that part of her 
life was gone which nothing could restore. She wrote 
in the diary so often quoted : — 

" How awful ! How mysterious ! But what a blessed end ! Her 
gentle spirit at rest, her sufferings over! But I — I, wretched child — 
who had lost the mother I so tenderly loved, from whom for these forty- 
one years I had never been parted except for a few weeks, what was my 
easel My childhood — everything seemed to crowd upon me at once. 
I seemed to have lived through a life, to have become old ! What I had 
dreaded and fought off the idea of for years, had come, and must be 
borne. The blessed future meeting, and her peace and rest, must hence- 
forward be my comfort." 



202 VICTORIA. 

In a letter to her uncle, the King of the Belgians, 
now the last survivor of his generation, the Queen 
wrote that she felt " so truly orphaned. " The Queen 
was sustained in her sorrow by the tender sympathy 
of her husband and of her daughter, the Princess 
Alice, whose strong and beautiful character, already 
well known in her home circle, was to be revealed to 
the nation a few months later. The Princess was 
now entering on womanhood, and had recently been 
betrothed to Prince Louis of Hesse, nephew of the 
reigning Grand Duke. After her lamented death in 
1878, a volume, with extracts from her letters to the 
Queen, was published as a memorial. In these she 
repeatedly recurs to the fact that when the Duchess of 
Kent died, the Prince Consort took his daughter by 
the hand and led her to the Queen, and told her she 
" must comfort mamma. " A few months later, when 
the place in the Palace of the husband and father was 
vacant, the Princess recalled these words, and accepted 
them as a sacred trust and bequest. She nobly justi- 
fied the confidence her father had reposed in her. In 
this earlier bereavement it was her office to comfort 
and sustain the Queen, who wrote : " Dear, good Alice 
was full of intense feeling, tenderness, and distress 
for me ; she, and all of them, loved ' grandmamma ' 
so dearly." 

The Queen and Prince appreciated fully all that the 
former had owed to her mother, — the watchful vigi- 
lance and wisdom with which, from the date of her 
husband's death, in 1820, the Duchess had devoted 
herself to the one object of preparing her baby daughter 
for the great future which awaited her. Stockmar 
had been her friend from the hour of her bereavement ; 
it was from him that she learned that the illness of 
her husband could have no other than a fatal termina- 
tion ; he had stood by her through the long years of 



THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 203 

her loneliness, surrounded as she was by ditFiculties, 
jealousies, and misrepresentations; he had always 
appreciated her warm heart and innate truthfulness. 
He wrote of her that "she was by sheer natural 
instinct truthful, affectionate, and friendly, unselfish, 
sympathetic, and even magnanimous." All these 
testimonies to her worth were recalled now with grati- 
tude and love by the sorrowing Queen. She was 
deprived of one solace which she might have had, 
the presence of her half-sister. Princess Feodore of 
Hohenlohe, the only other surviving child of the 
Duchess. She had recently been left a widow (April, 
1860), and could not leave Germany. 

Lady Augusta Bruce (afterwards Lady Augusta 
Stanley) had been one of the Duchess's ladies-in- 
waiting, and had been almost a daughter to her in 
love, and more than her own daughter could be in 
tender, watchful service. The Queen now transferred 
Lady Augusta to her own household, nominally as 
Resident Bed-Chamber Woman, really as assistant 
secretary ; and from this time a very strong bond of 
affection was established between them, which was 
unbroken until Lady Augusta's death. The Queen 
also received help and consolation from the presence 
of her eldest daughter, the Princess Royal, who 
hurried to her parents on hearing of their loss. But 
notwithstanding all consolations, the Queen's heart 
was very sore, and her faithful, tender nature is one 
which clings with tenacious gratitude to the memory 
of precious friends hid in death's dateless night. 
Eleven years after her mother's death, Her Majesty's 
journal for the 17th August, 1872, has the follow- 
ing entry: "Beloved mamma's birthday. That dear 
mother, so loving and tender and full of kindness ! 
How often I long for that love ! " The Queen did not 
attend her mother's funeral. "I and my girls," she 



204 VICTORIA, 

wrote, "prayed at home." A special trial belonging 
to the position of Royalty must be its isolation. No 
subject can be on terms of equality with a Sovereigns- 
crowned heads are therefore thrown almost wholly on 
their own immediate families for that life-giving sym- 
pathy and criticism which can hardly exist in perfec- 
tion except between equals. To the Queen the loss 
of her mother, followed by the loss of her husband, 
brought the silencing of the only voices in the world 
who could say to her, in love, "You have been wrong, 
you have made a mistake." Consider what it must 
be never to hear any language except that of homage 
and respect, never to listen to plain truths put plainly, 
never to be laughed at, seldom to be laughed with; 
and then imagine what it must be to lose the few who 
belong to that close inner circle for whom these for- 
malities are non-existent.^ One can only compare it 
to the position of a man on a desert island, who, 
having possessed a Bible or a Shakespeare, wakes one 
morning to find them destroyed or carried away by 
the tide. It has been sometimes said by English 
women that the Queen's loss when she lost her hus- 
band was not greater than that of thousands and mil- 
lions of women among her subjects ; it has even been 
said that Her Majesty's loss was not so great: some 
women, at one blow, by the death of their husbands, 
are face to face with the wolf of poverty and hunger 
for themselves and their children. No one can think 
lightly of such anguish; but if the inner history of 

1 The Queen gave expression to this sense of isolation, as a necessary- 
part of the position of a Sovereign, in a private letter to the Emperor of 
the French, dated August, 1857. She wrote, after thanking the Em- 
peror for his expressions of favorable opinion about the Prince Consort : 
" In a position so isolated as ours, we can find no greater consolation, no 
support more sure, than the sympathy and counsel of him or her who is 
called on to share our lot in life ; and the dear Empress, with her gen- 
erous impulses, is your guardian angel, as the Prince is my true friend/' 



THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 205 

such lives could be told, would it not often be found 
that the curse was turned into a blessing, that the 
necessity to seek active work, the friends found in 
seeking it and in doing it, gave relief to the heart- 
ache, and that the rod of chastisement had been con- 
verted into the staff of strength ? 

" Get leave to work 
In this world, — 't is the best you get at all ; 
For God in cursing gives us better gifts 
Than men in benediction. God says, ' Sweat 
For foreheads ; ' men say, ' Crowns : ' and so we are crowned, 
Ay, gashed by some tormenting circle of steel 
Which snaps with a secret spring. Get work, get work ; 
Be sure 't is better than what you work to get." 

The year preceding the death of the Prince Consort 
had been, perhaps, fuller than ever of public and 
private interests. In the autumn of 1860, the Queen 
and her husband met their daughter, Princess Frederick 
William of Prussia, with her two children, at Coburg. 
This was the first sight the Queen had of her grand- 
son, " Dear little William, . . . such a darling, and 
so intelligent; ... a very pretty, clever child." Dur- 
ing this visit to Coburg the Prince was in a serious 
carriage accident, from which, however, he escaped 
almost uninjured. The Queen's thankfulness is more 
touching by the light of after events. She gave 1, 200 
florins to found an annual gift for apprenticing young 
men and women in Coburg, to be distributed every year 
on the anniversary of her husband's escape. Tours 
had been arranged, and were taking place in 1860, for 
the Prince of Wales in Canada and the United States, 
and for Prince Alfred in Cape Colony; the parents 
constantly received the most gratifying news of the 
impression made by their sons, and the great loyalty 
their visits had called forth. Most courteous and 
cordial letters on the subject of the Prince of Wales's 
visit were exchanged between the Queen and the 



206 VICTORIA. 

President of the United States. The Queen addressed 
the President as "My good Friend," being the nearest 
approach which the circumstances admitted to the 
exclusively royal ''' mon cher frere." Special and sym- 
pathetic reference was made in both letters to the 
young Prince's visit to the tomb of Washington. 
Arrangements were made by the Prince Consort for 
the Prince of Wales's residence on his return from 
America for a year at the University of Cambridge. 
Before this, for the ostensible purpose of allowing 
the Prince of Wales to attend the German military 
manoeuvres, it was arranged that he should have the 
opportunity of making the acquaintance of the Princess 
Alexandra of Denmark. The Prince Consort notes 
with obvious satisfaction in his diary "that the young 
people seem to have taken a warm liking for one 
another. " 

Plans were also made during this autumn for a visit 
by the Prince of Wales to the Holy Land. 

The cares of a large family were particularly press- 
ing on the Queen and Prince during this year. Prince 
Leopold, who was delicate from his birth, had a sharp 
attack of measles, which caused great anxiety. It 
was necessary to send him (aged only seven) to Cannes 
for the winter; and the choice of suitable people to 
take charge of the delicate little lad was necessarily 
an anxious one. Among the other engagements of 
this autumn was included a visit to Ireland, with a 
hurried excursion to the Curragh to see the Prince of 
Wales, who was going through a course of military 
training there. 

With regard to public affairs, foreign politics were 
more than ordinarily absorbing. It was the year of 
the triumphal entry of Garibaldi into Naples, and of 
Victor Emmanuel into the Papal States. The Queen 
and Prince followed these events with more anxiety 



THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 207 

and less sympathy than the Ministry or the nation. 
The Prince dubbed Lord Palmerston and Lord John 
Russell, "the two old Italian masters." The Court 
seems to have failed to appreciate the constructive 
greatness of Garibaldi, and could see in him little 
more than a kind of picturesque bandit. The fruit of 
his labors towards the unification of Italy was now, 
however, nearly ripe, and before the death of the 
Prince Consort the English Government had acknowl- 
edged the title of Victor Emmanuel as King of Italy. 
On the Eastern Question the Queen and Prince were 
troubled and perplexed by the tendency of Turkey to 
relapse into all her old vices of oppression and bad 
government, and by the evident hesitation of the 
French Emperor upon the question whether it would 
not be to his interest to throw over the English and 
form a Russian alliance. 

At home the Queen and Prince were strenuously 
backing up the Government in their policy of increas- 
ing the naval defences of England and in protecting 
our southern coasts by extensive works of fortifica- 
tion. This policy was opposed by Mr. Bright and Mr. 
Cobden, from the ranks of the independent Members 
of Parliament, and by Mr. Gladstone from within the 
Cabinet. Palmerston wrote to the Queen that Mr. 
Gladstone had threatened to resign if the new fortifi- 
cations could not be paid for out of income ; and the 
Prime Minister added, in a characteristic passage, 
"Viscount Palmerston hopes to be able to overcome 
his objection; but if that should prove impossible, 
however great the loss to the Government by the 
retirement of Mr. Gladstone, it would be better to 
lose Mr. Gladstone than to run the risk of losinsr 
Portsmouth or Plymouth." Throughout this year, 
amid the constant pressure of work of both a public 
and a private character, and the deluge of despatches 



208 VICTORIA. 

that followed the Royal pair wheresoever they went, 
there are constant references to the failing health of 
the Prince Consort; his digestion was a perpetual 
trouble ; the Queen kept back details of business from 
him if they were of an anxious nature, because she 
knew they irritated his delicate stomach. The death 
of the Duchess of Kent threw a good deal of extra 
work upon the Prince ; he was left her sole executor, 
and masses of papers had to be dealt with without the 
aid of hei* secretary and controller of the household, 
who had predeceased his mistress by a few weeks. 
There was a visible failure of health and energy on 
the part of the Prince. "I have been far from well 
of late ; " " my catarrh refuses to give way ; " " yester- 
day I was too miserable to hold the pen," are a few 
expressions taken at random from his private letters 
in the year preceding his death. He did not, how- 
ever, relax his habit of diligent work. Summer and 
winter he rose at seven, and immediately attacked 
his correspondence, and the reading and writing of 
despatches for the Queen. They worked together, he 
writing, she correcting and amending. He would 
bring letters to the Queen and say, "Read carefully, 
and tell me if there be any faults in these " (he was 
never quite secure, it seems, about his English) ; or, 
"Here is a draft I have made for you. Read it; I 
should think it would do." The last time he rose to 
work in the early morning in this way was on Decem- 
ber 1, 1861, when he prepared a draft for the Queen 
on the Trent affair. Sir Theodore Martin gives it in 
facsimile in his fifth volume of the Life of the Prince. 
It stands in the Prince's writing, with the Queen's 
corrections. As he gave it to the Queen he said, " I 
am so weak I have scarcely been able to hold the 
pen." It was a worthy piece of work to stand as a 
last memento of a noble life. It was the time of the 



THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 209 

outset of the American Civil War. Great irritation 
had been produced between the Governments of Eng- 
land and the United States by the forcible seizure by 
the latter on an English ship, the Tren% of two envoys 
from the Southern States who were proceeding to 
Europe. It was an entirely unjustifiable piece of 
high-handedness, condemned by every rule of Interna- 
tional law. The feeling in England was one of intense 
indignation, and Lord Palmerston, then Prime Minis- 
ter, was not the man to soothe or subdue it. A 
despatch for communication to the American Govern- 
ment was sent by the Prime Minister to the Queen. 
If it had been delivered, as originally drafted, the 
peaceful settlement of the difference between the two 
countries would have been rendered extremely diffi- 
cult, if not impossible. The Prince Consort virtually 
remodelled it in such a way as to maintain all the 
just demands of this country, but to leave to the 
Government of the United States an honorable path of 
retreat from the false step which had been taken. 
This one piece of work alone should keep the Prince's 
memory green in both countries for many a long year. 
The news of the pacific settlement of the difference 
between England and America reached London on 9th 
January, 1862, less than a month after the Prince 
Consort's death. The Queen, in communicating with 
Lord Palmerston on the subject, could not forbear 
reminding him that the peaceful issue of the quarrel 
was "greatly owing to her beloved Prince." Pal- 
merston, in his reply, cordially acknowledged that it 
was so, and added: "But these alterations were only 
one of innumerable instances of the tact and judg- 
ment, and the power of nice discrimination which 
excited Lord Palmerston's constant and unbounded 
admiration." 

At the very outset of the Prince Consort's last ill- 

14 



210 VICTORIA. 

ness, his spirits were greatly depressed by the death 
from typhoid fever of the King of Portugal, Don 
Pedro, at the early age of twenty-five, and also of his 
brother. Prince Ferdinand. They were the Prince's 
cousins, and he w^as particularly attached to them, 
especially to the King, to whom he stood in almost a 
paternal relation. The King had married in 1857, 
with every apparent prospect of happiness, but his 
young wife had died of diphtheria in 1859, and now he 
and his brother were cut off by typhoid. The calam- 
ity produced an effect on the Prince Consort which he 
was unable to shake off. This and other anxieties of 
a private nature preyed upon his mind and deprived 
him of sleep. He noted in his diary of November 
24th that for fourteen days his nights had been almost 
sleepless. It was the beginning of the end. Another 
sign of low vitality was that he had no strong love of 
life. He said to the Queen, not long before his fatal 
illness, " I do not cling to life. You do ; but I set no 
store by it. If I knew that those I love were well 
cared for, I should be quite ready to die to-morrow; " 
and he added, " I am sure if I had a severe illness I 
should give up at once. I should not struggle for 
life. I have no tenacity of life. " The event proved 
that he was right. On Monday, November 25th, he 
paid a hurried visit to the Prince of Wales at Cam- 
bridge. He was then feeling far from well, and 
entered in his diary on his return, " Bin reclit elend " 
(am very wretched). His last public appearance was 
on November 28th, at a review of the Eton College 
Volunteers. That it was a great effort to him to fulfil 
this engagement is proved by the short note in his 
diary, the last he ever made, " Unhappily I must be 
present. " 

The gradually growing anguish of the Queen during 
the next fortnight can be traced day by day in the 



THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 211 

pages of Sir Theodore Martin. At first she was " so 
thankful the illness was not fever ; " then it became 
clear that it was fever, — typhoid fever, — with its 
accompanying exhaustion and wandering of mind. 
She was terribly alarmed, but still clung desperately 
to every favorable symptom. She tried to gather 
what the doctors really thought, less by what they 
said than by how they looked. When they looked 
grave and sad, " I went to my room and felt as if my 
heart must break. " When the doctors spoke frankly 
to her of the course which the fever must run before 
any improvement could be looked for, " My heart was 
ready to burst ; but I cheered up, remembering how 
many people have fever. . . . Good Alice was very 
courageous, and tried to comfort me. " In the earlier 
days of the Prince's illness he took pleasure in being 
read to, and in hearing music, and the little baby 
daughter, Beatrice, was brought in to say her new 
French verses, and he held her little hand in his. 
The Queen recalls with touching minuteness his ten- 
derness and caressing affection, constantly mani- 
fested towards herself. ''' Liehes Frduchen^^'' '^ gutes 
Weibchen " (dear little wife, good little wife), he would 
call her, stroking her face with his wasted hand. On 
December 11th the Queen's diary records that she 
supported him while he took his beef -tea. " And he 
laid his dear head (his beautiful face, more beautiful 
than ever, is grown so thin) on my shoulder, and 
remained a little while, saying, ' It is very comfortable 
so, dear child 1 ' which made me very happy. " 

His mind often wandered back to the days of his 
boyhood at the Rocenau ; but at times it would be as 
clear as ever, and he would speak to the Queen on 
public matters, or remind her of some important 
detail in connection with her despatches. On Decem- 
ber 13th an alarming change for the worse was 



212 VICTORIA. 

noticed, but again he rallied, and again the almost 
despairing Queen was tempted to listen to the delusive 
voice of hope. The Prince of Wales was summoned 
by telegraph from Cambridge, by the Princess Alice 
acting on her own responsibility, and he travelled 
through the night, reaching Windsor at three in the 
morning of December 14th. Prince Alfred was at 
Halifax, in Nova Scotia; Prince Leopold was at 
Cannes;^ and the Prince's darling eldest daughter, 
the Princess Royal, was in Prussia, and could not be 
summoned in time. Little Princess Beatrice was too 
young to know what she was losing. But the other 
children were gathered round their father's deathbed. 
About half-past five in the afternoon the Prince spoke 
to the Queen for the last time. He called her again, 
" Good little wife, " and kissed her with a sigh, as if 
he felt he was leaving her. Then he sank into a sort 
of doze, from which he never fully awoke ; and the life 
so inexpressibly dear to the Queen, and so valuable to 
his children and to the nation, gradually ebbed. The 
end came at a quarter to eleven on Saturday night, 
December 14th, 1861. The booming of the great bell 
of St. Paul's at midnight warned London of the 
calamity that had befallen the Queen and nation. 
But the sad news did not reach the general public till 
later. Few who were present at morning service on 
the following day will forget the thrill of awe and 
sorrow which ran through the church when the name 
of Prince Consort was omitted from the liturgy, and 
a long pause was made after the word " widows and 
orphans." To many this was the first intimation of 
the Prince's death. 

^ By a sad coincidence, the governor chosen for Prince Leopold, Sir 
Edward Bowater, died on the same day as the Prince Consort. The 
poor little boy, on hearing of his father's death, is said to have ex- 
claimed in the midst of his tears, " I must go to my mother. I want 
my mother." 



THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 213 

One of the Queen's chief titles to the love of her 
people is that she sorrows with their sorrows : — 

" Queen as true to womanhood as queenhood. 
Glorying with the glories of her people, 
Sorrowing with the sorrows of the lowest." 

The whole nation now mourned with the Queen, 
and with many the bitter cup was not unmingled with 
remorse. The lamentations for the dead are often 
sorest when the accusing conscience joins its forces 
to those of natural grief. Injustice, misrepresenta- 
tion, ungenerosity during life, add an almost intoler- 
able torture to the pain of the mourner. Fortunately, 
from this worst anguish the Queen was wholly free. 
She could look back over the whole of her twenty-two 
years' union with her beloved Prince, and could find 
nothing but an unbroken chain of confidence and 
love; it may safely be said that she had missed no 
opportunity of actively contributing to her husband's 
happiness by every device which ingenious watchful 
affection could contrive. She therefore belonged to 
those mourners of whom it may be truly said that they 
are blessed, and shall be comforted. On the last 
anniversary of her wedding-day before her husband's 
death, the Queen had written to the King of the 
Belgians to give renewed expression to the feelings, 
awakened by the day. She spoke again of "our 
blessed marriage," and "the incalculable blessing" it 
had brought ; and added, " Yery few can say with me 
that their husband at the end of twenty-one years is 
not only full of the friendship, kindness, and affection 
which a truly happy marriage brings with it, but of 
the same tender love as in the very first days of our 
marriage." Death itself could not rob her of this 
enormous happiness. It was true he was gone, and 
she was left alone to bear the weight of the crown and 
sceptre unsupported except by his memory; but for 



214 VICTORIA. 

nearly twenty-two years he had been to her in her 
own words, "Husband, father, lover, master, friend, 
adviser, and guide." Many will be disposed to 
murmur, "Happy woman, happy wife," even in face 
of the crushing grief which now overwhelmed her. 



CHAPTER XYL 

DOMESTIC LIFE AFTER 1861. 

After the death of the Prince Consort the available 
materials for a life of Her Majesty are much less 
ample. It is true that in giving directions to Sir 
Theodore Martin for writing the Life of the Prince, 
Her Majesty's desire was that only so much of her 
own life was to be revealed as was absolutely neces- 
sary for the continuity of the story ; but the two lives 
were so completely one that it was impossible to write 
an account of one that was not almost equally an 
account of the other. They realized, as long as the 
Prince lived, the dream of Tennyson's "Princess " : 

" Everywhere 
Two heads in council, two beside the hearth, 
Two in the tangled business of the world. 
Two in the liberal offices of life." 

Sources of information from political memoirs and 
biographies also became rarer, till they disappear 
altogether as we approach recent years. The burning 
political questions of the present day cannot be handled 
as those can that have been cooling for nearly half-a- 
century. Her Majesty's published diaries and the 
Memoir of Princess Alice studiously exclude nearly 
all references to the multifarious and constant politi- 
cal duties and interests devolving on the Head of the 
State ; it is only every now and then and, as it were, 
accidentally, that Her Majesty's political activities, 
during the thirty-four years since her husband's death, 
have been made known to the mass of her subjects ; 
whereas, during the twenty-one years of her married 



216 VICTORIA. 

life, they have been set forth in full detail. There 
is, however, every reason to know that Her Majesty 
is fully as active, and certainly has been as efficient, 
in the discharge of her political duties since she has 
stood alone as she was when her " permanent Minister " 
was by her side. 

When the blow of her husband's death fell upon 
her, the effect on the Queen was overwhelming. She 
was stunned by it. In after years she could hardly 
remember those dreadful days of the first realization 
of her loss ; the effect of her anguish was like that of 
a physical blow, producing insensibility, or at least 
the inability to record in the tables of the memory the 
sharp pangs she then endured. Her principal com- 
forter and supporter was her daughter, Princess Alice. 
In a few days the young girl of 18 developed into a 
thoughtful, helpful woman. She was for a time the 
medium of communication between the Queen and 
her Ministers. Fears were entertained, especially by 
Leopold, King of the Belgians, that residence at 
Windsor would involve risk to the Queen's health and 
even to her life, and he induced her Ministers to 
bring great pressure to bear on her to leave the castle 
and go to Osborne even before the funeral of the 
Prince Consort. At first, very naturally, the Queen 
entirely declined to entertain the idea ; but King 
Leopold insisted, and it was finally through the per- 
suasion of the Princess Alice that the Queen was 
induced to yield. Broken-hearted as she was, she 
did not forget the duty she owed to her country 
and family. In after years Princess Alice wrote that 
it was cruel and wrong to force her mother to leave 
Windsor at such a moment ; but the motive, whether 
misplaced or not, was anxiety for the Queen's health, 
and this was paramount over other considerations. 
The responsibility thrown on Princess Alice in two 



DOMESTIC LIFE AFTER 1861. 217 

directions, to support and console the Queen, and also 
as the medium of communication for a time with the 
Ministers, to understand and follow the political 
movements and events of the times, wonderfully 
developed the character of the young girl. To the 
end of her life she combined these two characteristics 
in a pre-eminent degree. She was one of those women 
who are born to seek that which was lost, to bind up 
that which was broken, and strengthen that which 
was sick ; and she also took the keenest and most 
intelligent interest in politics, following the move- 
ments for the unity of Germany, the development of 
constitutional liberty in various countries, and the 
education and employment of women, not only with 
sympathy, but with practical knowledge and a con- 
stant wish to forward all these movements by personal 
exertions and sacrifices. She was very soon to leave 
her mother's home for her husband's. Her marriage 
with Prince Louis of Hesse took place on July 1st, 
1862 ; but though her home was henceforth in Germany, 
the country of her birth remained the country of her 
heart : she loved England as the home of liberty and 
as the country which was leading the way of advance- 
ment both for men and women. It is a touchino; 
incident that, dying as she did at Darmstadt in 1878, 
her last request to her husband was that the Union 
Jack might be laid on her coffin. 

Her devotion to the Queen in the hour of her deso- 
lation greatly endeared her to the English people ; the 
memory of that sacred time of common sorrow made 
a special bond between the mother and daughter. It 
will not be forgotten that when, in 1871, the Prince 
of Wales had a desperate attack of the same illness 
(typhoid fever) that had been fatal to his father ten 
years earlier, the Princess Alice helped the Princess 
of Wales to nurse him safely through it ; the anniver- 



218 VICTORIA. 

sary of the Prince Consort's death, December 14th, 
was the day on which the iUness of his son took a 
favorable turn. On the first anniversary of the turn- 
ing point in the Prince of Wales's illness, December 
14th, 1872, Princess Alice wrote to the Queen that 
the day must always be one of mixed recollections 
and feelings, of thankfulness as well as of sorrow, 
and that in both respects it would always be " a day 
hallowed in our family." Six years later it was on 
this very day, December 14th, 1878, that the beloved 
and gifted Princess breathed her last. 

All the contemporary records speak of the Queen as 
having borne her terrible grief with courage. She is 
said to have been more outwardly composed than she 
had been after the death of her mother. She began 
after a few days to transact necessary business. On 
the 20th December, one of the family wrote from 
Windsor that she had signed some papers, and had 
seen Lord Granville. One of her political letters to 
Lord Palmerston, written in January, 1862, has been 
already quoted. It is entirely characteristic of her 
that her first public utterance after the death of her 
husband was an expression of tenderest sympathy with 
the wives and children of 204 poor men who were 
killed in the Hartley Colliery explosion in January, 
1862. Her own misery, the Queen said, made her 
feel the more for them. A little later she received 
visits of sympathy and condolence from her uncle, 
King Leopold, and from her half-sister, Princess 
Feodore of Hohenlohe. To a nature like hers, work 
and the sympathy of loving friends are the best of all 
balms ; but she was intensely forlorn ; she had lost 
the source of joy and happiness, and nothing could 
bring it back. The joyous young woman, radiant 
with light-hearted happiness, ceased to exist on 
December 14th, 1861. Henceforward our Queen has 



DOMESTIC LIFE AFTER 1861. 219 

been a careworn woman, acquainted with grief. She 
has herself told how her sad and suffering heart was 
cheered by the solemn beauty of her beloved High- 
lands, and especially that she was taught many a 
lesson of resignation and faith by her faithful Scottish 
servants. One of these, John Grant, wheeling her 
chair, or leading her pony along the mountain paths, 
taught her that she must not look upon the days espe- 
cially associated with her husband's memory — his 
birthday, August 26th, or even the day of his death, 
December 14th — as days of mourning. " That 's not 
the light to look at," he said, and helped her to feel 
that they were beloved and blessed days, because they 
were so full of the memories of the blessed past. In 
recording this the Qaeen writes, "There is so much 
true and strong faith in these good, simple people." 
The lesson was not forgotten, and we find, by various 
notes in the diary, that the Queen keeps her husband's 
birthday by trying to make it a happy day for those 
about her, celebrating it by giving presents to her 
children, ladies and gentlemen in attendance, and 
servants, so that all should feel they had been borne 
in mind, and had received some " remembrance of the 
dear day. " In the same spirit of gratitude for past 
happiness, Her Majesty's note in her diary for October 
15th, 1867, is, "Our blessed engagement day! A 
dear and sacred day — already twenty-eight years ago. 
How 1 ever bless it ! " In contrast with this, we find 
the entry for her own birthday. May 24th, 1863, just 
three words, " My poor birthday ! " 

Chief among her Highland friends, the Queen had 
the good fortune to reckon Dr. Norman Macleod. 
His strong faith and his power of sympathy, combined 
with a wonderful gift of expression and indefatigable 
kindness, gave him a peculiar power in saying the 
right thing, and giving just the help and support that 



220 VICTORIA, 

the Queen wanted when she felt most forlorn. He 
had also the strong sense of humor which so often 
makes the crooked straight, and the rough places 
plain. The Queen felt she could talk openly to him 
about her sorrow; he helped her to look, not down, 
but up. When showing him a drawing of the Prince's 
mausoleum, his exclamation was, " Oh, he is not 
there. " He would lead her away from her own grief, 
to realize, and help to soothe, the sorrows of others. 
He told her of a beautiful expression of a poor Scottish 
woman who had lost her husband and several of her 
children. The poor woman had said, referring to her 
husband's death, " When he was ta'en, it made sic a 
hole in my heart that a' other sorrows gang lichtly 
through. " 

It is interesting to note that on October 3d, 1869, 
the Queen asked Dr. Macleod his opinion of the 
Marquis of Lome. The Doctor assured her that he 
knew Lord Lome well, and had prepared him for 
confirmation, and thought very highly of him, — 
"good, excellent and superior in every way." Exactly 
a year from that day, October 3d, 1870, the Princess 
Louise became engaged to the Marquis of Lome, and 
they were married on March 21st, 1871. 

The Queen was greatly attracted by the simplicity 
and dignity of the services of the Scottish Church. 
She was present at the Communion Service at Crathie 
in 1871. The Journal says : — 

" It would be impossible to say how deeply we were impressed by the 
grand simplicity of the service. It was all so truly earnest, and no de- 
scription can do justice to the perfect devotion of the whole assemblage. 
It was most touching, and I longed much to join in it." 

Since 1873, this wish on the part of the Queen has 
been gratified, and she has joined in the communion 
at Crathie every autumn. 

Although Princess Alice's marriage in July, 1862, 



DOMESTIC LIFE AFTER 1861. 221 

had deprived the Queen of the constant companion- 
ship of this dearly loved daughter, yet the Princess 
continued to spend part of almost every year with her 
mother. She returned to England in November, 1862, 
and stayed with the Queen till after the birth of her 
first baby, in April, 1863. The Queen was a most 
tender nurse, and always took a special interest in the 
granddaughter and god-daughter who had been born 
under her roof. It was Princess Alice who encouraged 
the Queen to emerge a little from the seclusion to 
which she had clung since her widowhood. She pro- 
moted little mountain excursions, in which the Queen 
was induced to take part, in the autumn of 1863. 
She, and also the Princess Royal, accompanied the 
Queen in the same year to the ceremony of the unveil- 
ing of the Prince's statue at Aberdeen. It is easy to 
understand what a trying ordeal this must have been 
to the Queen. There were dense crowds, loyal and 
kindly, but silent and full of mournful sympathy; 
there was no music even,^ the bands having been for- 
bidden to play, — such a contrast, as the Queen wrote, 
to "former blessed times." No wonder that she was 
"terribly nervous, and longed not to have to go 
through this fearful ordeal." The Queen had been 
present before this at family ceremonies, the mar- 
riages of Princess Alice in 1862, and of the Prince of 
Wales on March 10th, 1863 ; but the first of these had 
been of quite a private character, and in the second 
the Queen had taken no part, merely watching the 
service from the Royal Closet in St. George's Chapel, 
Windsor ; but this was her first appearance since her 

1 It was nearly five years after her husband's death before the Queen 
could bear to listen to music. In 1866, Princess Alice wrote to her 
mother : " I am really glad to hear that you can listen to a little music. 
Music is such a heavenly thing, and dear Papa loved it so much, that I 
can't but think that now it must be soothing, and bring you near to 
him." 



222 VICTORIA. 

husband's death at a public ceremony. She "pra3^ed 
for help." But, however painful, she felt it was right 
that she should make the effort, and it helped her to 
overcome her extreme reluctance to take her part once 
more in the pageantry and glitter of royalty. Little 
by little she took up this burden also, helped and 
encouraged by her children, and from 1866 has from 
time to time opened Parliament in person, and taken 
her part as Sovereign in the public functions devolv- 
ing on her position. There was at one time an under- 
current of rather mean resentment that she did not, 
after her widowhood, enter into social gayety and 
lead fashionable life as of old. The loss of her direct 
personal influence from the social world has been a 
very real one. But there are limits to human strength 
and endurance ; and those who grumbled because the 
Queen absented herself from the world of fashion, 
were probably thinking more of the number and bril- 
liancy of Court functions, and of the supposed benefit 
to trade accruing therefrom, than of the value of a 
pure-hearted woman's influence at the head of society. 
Mr. John Bright in 1866 gave a trenchant rebuke from 
a public platform to one of these grumblers, who 
asserted at a meeting of working-men that the Queen 
was so absorbed in her own grief as to have lost all 
sympathy with her people. He said : — 

" I am not accustomed to stand up in defence of those who are the 
possessors of crowns. But I could not sit here and hear that observa- 
tion without a sensation of wonder and of pain. I think there has been, 
by many persons, a great injustice done to the Queen in reference to 
her desolate and widowed position. And I venture to say this, that a 
woman, be she queen of a great realm, or be she the wife of one of your 
laboring men, who can keep alive in her heart a great sorrow for the 
lost object of her life and affection, is not at all likely to be wanting in 
a great and generous sympathy with you." 

The whole meeting responded to the simple, generous 
words, touching as they did the chord of universal 
human feeling. 



DOMESTIC LIFE AFTER 1861. 223 

The Queen's love for Scotland and the Scottish 
people has made it easier for her to take part in ordi- 
nary social life in the neighborhood of Balmoral than 
in the crowded whirl of London. She has taken part 
in the torch-carrying on Halloween, in gillies' balls, 
in marriages and christenings in Scotland, and made 
herself one with her people there in all their joys and 
sorrows. Her faithful Scotch servant, John Brown, 
was for many years a familiar figure, in his Highland 
dress, behind the Queen's carriage. He served her 
with tact and fidelity, which she rewarded with grate- 
ful and unstinted appreciation. He died in 1883. 
The last words in "More Leaves from a Journal of a 
Life in the Highlands," are a tribute to his memory; 
while the book itself is dedicated, "To my Loyal 
Highlanders, and especially to the memory of my 
devoted personal attendant and faithful friend, John 
Brown." She attended the funeral service held in 
his mother's house on the occasion of his father's 
death, and stayed with the widow to soothe and com- 
fort her when the funeral procession left the house. 
Only the heavy rain prevented her accompanying the 
other mourners to the grave. It is no doubt the free- 
dom from formality, the genuine simplicity of the life 
around her at Balmoral, which makes it congenial to 
the Queen. There the gayeties are really gay; the 
mournings are really sad, dignified, and solemn, and 
not a mocking travesty of pretended woe. One of the 
luxuries the Queen allows herself in Scotland is the 
building of what maybe called "pic-nic" houses in 
attractive situations in the neighborhood. These are 
little more than cottages, only just large enough for 
the Queen, and one or two of her children, and the 
necessary attendants and servants, generally built in 
wild and rather inacessible spots among the hills. 
One of these, Altnagiathasach, was built before the 



224 VICTORIA. 

Prince Consort's death. After her widowhood, the 
Queen felt she could not go there alone, and she built 
another at Glassaltshiel, the house-warming of which 
she celebrated in 1868. When the little festivity, 
with its reel-dancing and whiskey-toddy drinking, was 
over, the Queen's Journal records, "The sad thought 
struck me that it was the first widow'' s house, not built 
by him " (the Prince), "nor hallowed by his memory. 
But I am sure his blessing does rest on it, and on 
those who live in it." Another of these little houses, 
a much smaller one, with only two rooms and a 
kitchen, is Glengeldershiel; it is within a short drive 
from Balmoral. In the neighborhood of these retired 
cottages the Queen could walk, accompanied by her 
friends, her children, and her dogs, without the fear 
of the tourist or the much-dreaded reporter before her 
eyes. 

It must not, however, be represented that it was 
only in Scotland that Her Majesty found any means of 
social enjoyment. The following letter from Thomas 
Carlyle (first published in The Athenceum, in January, 
1895) shows that this was not the case. It is too 
picturesque to be cut up; the ill-natured and unjust 
references to Lady Augusta Stanley and Mrs. Grote 
must be tolerated for the sake of the rest of the letter. 
It would not be characteristic of Carlyle if it were 
bowdlerized so as to leave the impression that he was 
in charity with all mankind. The letter is addressed 
to his sister, Mrs. Aitken : — 

Chelsea, March 11th, 1869. 

Dear Jean, — Mary, I find, has inserted for you a small letter 
along with the one that belongs to the Doctor. I have nothing of my 
own in the form of news beyond what that " child of Nature " will have 
said. 

All busy here, — March winds "sneH"as possible (one's new cape 
not useless), but not unwholesome : fine, dry, and cold, instead of the 
wet, tepid puddle we have long had, and, in consequence, sleep a little 
better than then. 



DOMESTIC LIFE AFTER 1861. 225 

But my present business is to tell you exclusively of the Queen's 
interview, for which great object I have only a few minutes. Swift 
then, if my poor hand but would ! " Interview " took place this day 
gone a week Nearly a week before that the Dean and Deaness (who 
is called Lady Augusta Stanley, once Bruce, an active, hard and busy 
woman) drove up here and, in a solemnly mysterious, half-quizzical 
manner, invited me for Thursday, 4th, at 5 p. ai. — " must come ; a very 
high, indeed highest personage has long been desirous," &c., &c. I saw 
well enough it was the Queen's incofjnita, and briefly agreed to come. 
" Half-past four, come you," and then went their ways. 

Walking up at the set time, I was ushered into that long drawing- 
room in their monastic edifice. I found no Stanley yet there ; only at 
the further end a tall old year-pole (?) of a Mrs. Grote, the most 
wooden-headed woman I know in London, or the world, who thinks 
herself very clever, &c., and the sight of whom led me to expect Mr. 
too, and perhaps others, as accordingly in a few minutes fell out. 
Grote and wife. Sir Charles Lyell and ditto. Browning and myself : 
that I saw to be our party. " Better than nothing," thought I, " these 
will take off the edge of the thing, if edge there be " — which it had n't, 
nor threatened to have. 

The Stanleys and we were all in a flow of talk, and some flunkys 
had done setting coffee-pots and tea-cups of a sublime pattern, when 
Her Majesty, punctual to the minute, glided in, escorted by her dame- 
in-waiting (a Duchess Dowager of Athol), and by the Princess Louise, 
decidedly a very pretty young lady, and clever too, as I found out in 
talking to her afterwards. The Queen came softly forward, a kindly 
little smile on her face, gently shook hands with all the three Avomen, 
gently acknowledged with a nod the silent bows of us male monsters ; 
and directly in her presence every one was at ease again. She is a 
comely little lady, with a pair of kind, clear, and intelligent gray eyes ; 
still looks almost young (in spite of one broad wrinkle which shows on 
each cheek occasionally) ; is still plump ; has a fine, low voice, soft; 
indeed, her whole manner is melodiously perfect. It is impossible to 
imagine a politer little woman ; nothing the least imperious ; all gentle, 
all sincere, looking unembarrassing, — rather attractive even; makes 
you feel, too (if you have any sense in you), that she is Queen. 

After a little word to each of us — to me it was, " Sorry you did not 
see my daughter " (Princess of Prussia), or " all sorry," perhaps so ; which 
led us to Potsdam, Berlin, &c., for an instant or two. To Sir Charles 
Lyell I heard her say, " Gold in Sutherland " — but quickly and deli- 
cately cut him short in responding. To Browning, " Are you writing 
anything 1 " (who has just been publishing the absurdest things !) To 
Grote I did not hear what she said, but it was touch-and-go with every- 
body — Majesty visibly ivithoxd interest, or nearly so, of her own. 

After this, coffee (very black and muddy ) was handed round, Queen 
and three women taking seats, Queen in the corner of a sofa. Lady Dean- 
ess in opposite corner, Mrs. Grote in a chair intrusively close to Majesty; 

15 



226 VICTORIA. 

Lady Lyell modestly at the diagonal corner ; we others obliged to stand 
and hover within call. 

Coffee fairly done, Lady Augusta called me gently to come and 
speak to Her Majesty. I obeyed, first asking, as an old, infirmish man, 
Her Majesty's permission to sit, which was graciously conceded. Noth- 
ing of the least significance was said, nor needed ; however, my bit of 
dialogue went very well. " What part of Scotland I came from 1 " 
" Dumfries {where Majesty might as well go sometimes). Carlisle, 
Caer Leivel, a place of about the antiquity of King Solomon (according 
to Milton)," whereat Majesty smiled. Border Ballads and old James 
Pool slightly alluded to, not by name. Glasgow, and grandfather's 
ride thither, ending in more psalms, and streets vacant at 9J p. m. — 
hard, sound Presbyterian root of what has now shot up to such a mon- 
strously ugly cabbage-tree and hemlock-tree ! all which Majesty seemed 
to take rather well : whereupon Mrs. Grote rose good-naturedly and 
brought forward her husband cheek by jowl with Majesty, who evidently 
did not care a straw for him, but kindly asked — " Writing anything 1 " 
and one heard "Aristotle, now that I have done with Plato " (but only 
for a minimum of time). Majesty herself (and I think apropos of some 
question about my shaky hand) said something about her own difficulty 
in writing to dictation, which brought forward Lady Lyell and husband, 
mutually used to the operation ; after which, talk becoming quite trivial. 
Majesty gracefully retired with Lady Augusta, and, in ten minutes more, 
returned, to receive our farewell bows, which, too, she did very prettily, 
and sailed out as if moving on skates, and bending her head to us with 
a smile. 

By the underground railway I was home before seven, and out of 
the adventure, with only a headache of little moment. 

Proude tells me there are foolish myths about the poor business, 
especially about my share of it ; but this is the real truth, worth to me 
in strictest truth all but nothing, in the myths less than nothing. 

Tell the Dr. I intended writing him, but it is already (horrible to 
think !) a quarter-past four. 

Adieu, dear Sister, 

Yours ever, T. C. 



CHAPTER XYII. 

THE WARP AND WOOF OF HOME AND POLITICS. 

Between 1858 and 1885 all the Queen's nine children 
married ; and every one knows that she took just as 
much delight and interest in their prospect of form- 
ing happy homes of their own as any other mother in 
her wide dominions could have done. In other words, 
politics and political responsibilities of the weightiest 
kind have not unsexed her. In arranging the mar- 
riages of her three elder children, Her Majesty had 
had the advantage of the knowledge and judgment of 
the Prince Consort. It can hardly be by accident 
that the brides and bridegrooms of our Royal House 
have not been brought up in the full blast of the hot- 
house atmosphere of Court life. We know that the 
Queen and Prince Consort looked upon this atmos- 
phere as dangerous and pernicious, and kept their own 
children as much apart from it as was possible ; their 
sons and daughters-in-law, with one exception, were 
selected from those who had not passed their earliest 
and most impressionable years as the children of 
reigning Sovereigns. 

It has been already noted that the Queen did not 
allow her private inclinations, which would doubtless 
have been gratified by keeping the Princess Alice 
with her, to postpone the marriage which had been 
sanctioned by the Prince Consort. Prince Louis, 
indeed, thought that his betrothed wife would not 
have held to her engagement after her father's death, 
seeing how her mother depended on her for comfort 
in her great sorrow; but he was mistaken, and the 



228 VICTORIA, 

marriage took place not long after the date originally 
fixed, July 1st, 1862. In the autumn of the same 
year the Queen, who visited her uncle. King Leopold, 
at Laeken, arranged to meet, for the first time, her 
future daughter-in-law, the Princess Alexandra of 
Denmark. Later, in 1862, the beautiful young Prin- 
cess visited the widowed Queen at Windsor, and 
received a mother's welcome from that warm, tender 
heart. All references to the Princess of Wales 
throughout the Queen's journals and the Princess 
Alice's letters are most loving and tender. "Dear, 
sweet, gentle Alix," are among the many endearing 
epithets bestowed on her by her mother and sister-in- 
law. The marriage of the Prince and Princess of 
Wales on March 10th, 1863, took place in St. George's 
Chapel, Windsor. It was a most magnificent cere- 
monial, and was the first Royal marriage celebrated 
in that Chapel since that of Henry I. in 1122. At 
the wedding Prince William of Prussia, aged four, 
was placed between his two little uncles, Arthur and 
Leopold, who were instructed to keep him quiet. 
Bishop Wilberforce says that he resented any inter- 
ference, and bit his uncles on their "bare Highland 
legs " if they tried to control him. 

The good feeling among the various members of the 
English Royal Family was soon after this put to a 
severe test. The Schleswig-Holstein quarrel between 
Denmark and Germany came to a head in 1864, and 
war was declared, with the inevitable result that the 
little kingdom of Denmark was completely beaten by 
her powerful opponents, the combined Powers of 
Austria and Prussia. The King of Prussia was father- 
in-law of our Princess Royal. She and Princess 
Alice, as wife of another German Prince, naturally 
espoused the German side in the quarrel ; the Prince 
and Princess of Wales, as naturally, espoused that of 



JVARP AND WOOF OF HOME AND POLITICS. 229 

Denmark, and felt that the little kingdom had been 
unfairly browbeaten and bullied by its powerful neigh- 
bors. There was a very strong feeling in England in 
support of Denmark. Lord John Russell had undoubt- 
edly led her on to suppose that in the event of war, 
she would receive the armed assistance of England. 
A powerful section of the Tory party was also in favor 
of war. Votes of censure were moved against the 
Government in both Houses ; the vote was carried in 
the Lords, and only averted in the Commons by a 
narrow majority. In this crisis, it was the nearest 
thing in the world that England was not precipitated 
into war with Germany. The Emperor of the French 
was urging it, and offering his alliance. He had 
already begun to talk about the Rhine frontier being 
" an absolute necessity " for France, and would have 
liked nothing better than an alliance with England 
against Germany, The Queen averted the catas- 
trophe, and we learn from Lord Malmesbury's Memoirs 
that she " would not hear of going to war with 
Germany." "No doubt," he adds, "this country 
would like to fight for the Danes, and from what is 
said, 1 infer that the Government is inclined to sup- 
port them also, but finds sfreat difficulties in the 
opposition of the Queen." Her immense knowledge 
of foreign politics and grasp of a continuous and defi- 
nite line of action saved England from the enormous 
blunder of involving: this countrv in war about the 
succession to the German Duchies. Probably very 
few people in England really understood the question 
at issue at the time; and it was the Queen's knowl- 
edge and strong common-sense which saved us from 
a serious national disaster. 

The family aspects of the quarrel called forth the 
good qualities of the woman, just as its national 
aspects had called forth those of the Queen. The war 



230 VICTORIA. 

and the crushing of poor Denmark left a feeling of 
soreness and resentment which did not subside for 
many a year. The war took place in 1864; it was 
not till 1867 that there was a friendly meeting between 
the King of Prussia and the Prince and Princess of 
Wales. Princess Alice wrote from Darmstadt in 
October of that year : — 

" Bertie and Alex [the Prince and Princess of Wales] liaA^e been here 
since Saturday afternoon. , . . The visit of the King [of Prussia] went 
off very well, and Alex was pleased with the kindness and civility of 
the King. I hear that the meeting was satisfactory to both parties, 
which I am heartily glad of. Bearing ill-will is always a mistake, 
besides its not being right." 

Another marriage in the Royal Family still further 
complicated the Schleswig-Holstein question from the 
domestic point of view, for in 1866 Princess Helena, 
the Queen's third daughter, married Prince Chris- 
tian of Schleswig-Holstein, the second son of the 
German claimant of the Duchies. The Queen gave her 
daughter away. The Princess and her husband have 
made their home in England. 

It was in this year that the war between North and 
South Germany, headed respectively by Prussia and 
Austria, about the disposal of the Schleswig-Holstein 
Duchies, had the effect of bringing the Queen's two 
sons-in-law, Prince Frederick William of Prussia and 
Prince Louis of Hesse, into the field of battle on oppo- 
site sides. This was a severe trial. The Princess 
Alice's letters showed that it caused her intense 
anguish. She, like her father, longed for the unity 
of Germany under the headship of Prussia, and was 
quite ready to submit to the sacrifices this would 
entail on the smaller German Princes ; but this war 
of brother against brother, and friend against friend, 
was a thing which she felt to be too fearful to con- 
template. In this hour of great trial, the love and 



WARP AND WOOF OF HOME AND POLITICS. 231 

confidence between the sisters and their respective 
husbands never wavered. Prince Louis went to Berlin, 
before the actual outbreak of hostilities, to see his 
brother-in-law, and he then made sure that though 
their respective allegiance brought them into conflict 
as soldiers, yet as men they would remain brothers 
and friends. North Germany under Prussia was, as 
every one knows, successful in the conflict, and the 
victorious Prussian army marched into Darmstadt 
just at the time of the birth of Princess Alice's third 
daughter (July 11th, 1866). The newly made mother 
lay in bed hearing the shouts of her husband's victors, 
at the very time knowing that he was still under fire, 
and that she was unable to get any news of his safety. 
The christening of the little Princess was put off till 
it could take place on the day on which the treaty of 
peace was ratified at Berlin ; the baby then received 
the name of Irene, in commemoration of the event. 
The poor little Princess of peace had very warlike 
godfathers, — the whole of the cavalry brigade which 
had been commanded by her father in the late war. 
It is significant that just before this war Princess 
Alice had written to the Queen using the expression : 
" I long to . . . know that your warm heart is acting 
for Germany." That is the woman all over: to feel, 
is to translate feeling into action wherever power to 
do so is not lacking. The warp and woof of home and 
politics are ever conspicuous in the Princess Alice's 
letters. When the Schleswig-Holstein question first 
began to threaten war, she wrote to the Queen, filling 
the first part of the letter with her speculations on the 
political situation, and then passing to her baby's 
first tooth, " She makes such faces if one ventures to 
touch her little mouth ; " and the Princess then goes on 
to mention some of her activities in trying to set the 
hospital at Darmstadt in good order, and to interest the 



232 VICTORIA. 

burgomaster and town councillors in the work, and 
the provision she was making for the safety and well- 
being of poor women in childbirth. She was indeed 
a very political woman, and a very womanly politician. 

In 1870, when the Franco-German War broke out, 
the Queen's sympathies, it is almost needless to say, 
went wholly with Germany; she had looked for the 
unification of Germany as steadily as old Stockmar 
and the Prince Consort, and the year 1871 saw this 
vision become an accomplished fact. King William 
of Prussia was proclaimed the German Emperor by 
the assembled German Princes in the banqueting hall 
of Versailles. 

In 1868, when Prince Alfred was absent in Australia, 
he was shot at and wounded by a Fenian named 
O'Farrell. When telegraphic news of this was re- 
ceived in cipher at the Colonial Office, it was at first 
impossible to make out whether the Prince had been 
killed or only wounded. Another telegram on the 
following day set the worst anxieties at rest, and 
further despatches brought word that the ball had 
been extracted, and that the Prince was doing well ; 
but it can easily be understood what a shock the event 
must have been to the Queen. Prince Alfred, who 
had been created a peer under the title of Duke of 
Edinburgh, married in 1874 the Grand-Duchess Marie, 
only daughter of Emperor Alexander 11. of Russia. 
In 1893, on the death of the Prince Consort's brother, 
Duke Ernest of Coburg, the Duke of Edinburgh suc- 
ceeded him, and is now the reigning Duke of Saxe- 
Coburg-Gotha. When Prince Alfred's engagement to 
the Grand-Duchess Marie was impending, but not yet 
settled, he joined his sister, Princess Alice, on a 
tour in Italy, the Empress of Russia and her daughter 
being at Sorrento. Visits were made to them by the 
English Prince and Princess; the latter of whom 



WARP AND WOOF OF HOME AND POLITICS. 233 

wrote to the Queen that the bride-elect had an attack 
of fever, and she added, " We remained at Rome a 
day longer on account of poor Alfred. He is very 
patient and hopeful." This was in April, 1873. The 
betrothal took place in July of the same year, and the 
marriage in January, 1874, at St. Petersburg. This 
was the only one of the marriages of the Queen's 
children at which she was unable to be present. All 
the others have married from their mother's house. 
Dean Stanley attended the Duke of Edinburgh's mar- 
riage, and performed the English part of the service, 
by the Queen's express command. 

It was in May, 1873, that the most terrible sorrow 
fell upon Princess Alice, — the sudden, violent death of 
her little boy. Prince Frederick William (Frittie), aged 
two and a half years. This dear child had been born 
during the Franco-German War; Prince Louis had 
parted from his wife to take the command of the Hes- 
sian troops in July, 1870. "Frittie " was born on 7th 
October, and the husband and wife did not meet again 
till the end of the war, March 31st, 1871. In the 
interval, Princess Alice had suffered great anxiety on 
account of the war, and the danger to which her hus- 
band was exposed ; she also exerted herself far beyond 
her strength in nursing the sick and wounded. But 
this was not a time when a generous nature counts 
the cost of personal services. She was in the hospital 
every day, late and early, and besides this, nursed 
wounded soldiers in her own house. She faced typhus 
and small-pox, and on one occasion (mentioned by 
Lady Bloomfield) helped to lift a wounded man who 
had small-pox full out upon him. The child born 
during these months of mental and physical strain 
was delicate from his birth; he had a tendency to 
hemorrhage which was very alarming, and during 
his short life he had many illnesses and ailments. 



234 VICTORIA. 

He was, perhaps for this very reason, the special 
object of his mother's love. On the May 29th, 1873, 
Princess Alice having lately returned from her tour 
in Italy, her two little boys, Ernie and "Frittie," were 
brought to her room, before she was up, to bid her 
"Good-morning." By her wish they were left in the 
room to play about. The elder of the two little boys 
having run into the adjoining dressing-room, his 
mother followed him ; during her momentary absence, 
the younger fell out of the open window of the bed- 
room on to the stone terrace below : he was alive when 
he was picked up, but was insensible, and only sur- 
vived a few hours. No one ever knew exactly how 
the accident happened, but the horror and anguish of 
the poor mother can be imagined. It was a blow 
from which she never really recovered. The Queen's 
heart bled for her daughter. The poor Princess wrote 
to her mother in August, 1873, "Many thanks for 
your dear letter ! I am feeling so low and weak 
to-day that kind words are doubly soothing. You 
feel so with me, when you understand how long and 
deep my grief must be. And does one not grow to 
love one's grief, as having become part of the being 
one loved, — as if through this one could still pay a 
tribute of love to him to make up for the terrible 
loss ? " All through this cruel anguish she relied 
with perfect confidence on her mother's sympathy. In 
September, 1873, she wrote to the Queen, "You ask 
me if I can play yet ? I feel as if I could not, and I 
have not yet done so. In my own house it seems to 
me as if I never could play again on that piano, where 
little hands were nearly always thrust when I wanted 
to play. . . . Mary Teck (Duchess of Teck) came to 
see me, and remained two nights, so warm-hearted 
and sympathizing. I like to talk of him to those who 
love children, and can understand how great the gap. 



WARP AND WOOF OF HOME AND POLITICS. 235 

how intense the pain, the ending of a bright little 
existence causes." The resemblance between the 
mother and daughter came out in their grief. After 
the Prince Consort's death, the Queen's chief comfort 
was to speak of him constantly to those who had 
known and loved him; and the Princess Alice's letters 
continually dwell on her darling child whom she had 
lost in such a terrible way. 

Several of the Queen's daughters, notably the Em- 
press Frederick and Princess Alice, have shown the 
greatest sympathy with what is known in England 
as the women's movement. They have promoted 
by every means in their power improved opportu- 
nities of education and employment for women, and 
greater social liberty for them. The Queen, it must 
be confessed, has never shown that she sympathizes 
with her daughters in their attitude on this question. 
Princess Alice's letters show that Her Majesty was 
rather anxious and nervous about the women's meet- 
ings and associations promoted by the Princess, and 
not really pleased at the ceaseless activity of her 
daughter's mind ^ on these subjects. She inquired 
anxiously if Princess Alice took counsel with her 
mother-in-law, Princess Charles of Hesse, upon them ; 
when the Princess was studying anatomy and phy- 
siology, she, as it were, apologized to her mother for 
her interest in them, and said it might even be useful 
to be not entirely ignorant on such things : she added 
that she knew her mother did not like such studies, 
but affirmed that for her own part, instead of finding 
them disgusting, they filled her with admiration to 
see how wonderfully the human body was made. 
Though, on the whole, the Queen has been very far 
from giving encouragement, except by the magnificent 
example of her own life and character, to the modern 
movement among women for sharing in political work 



236 VICTORIA. 

and responsibility, she testified her interest in their 
higher education by opening in person, in 1887, the 
palatial buildings of Holloway College. It was rather 
a singular coincidence that the year in which the 
Queen did this (which was also the year of her Jubilee) 
a young lady. Miss Agneta Ramsay, occupied the then 
unprecedented position of Senior Classic in the Uni- 
versity of Cambridge. This made 1887, in a very 
special degree, a woman's year. 

Another of the modern women's movements which 
the Queen has promoted is their entrance into the 
medical profession. In 1881, a medical missionary 
from India, Miss Beilby, was the bearer of a message 
from the Maharanee of Punnah to the Queen, telling 
Her Majesty of the terrible sufferings of Indian women 
from the want of duly-qualified women doctors. The 
Queen was deeply moved by the tale of unnecessary 
suffering, and of valuable lives thrown away or 
blighted by the want of skilful and properly trained 
women to attend native women in sickness. Lord 
Dufferin was not long after appointed Governor- 
General of India, and before he left, the Queen 
especially charged Lady Dufferin with the task of 
instituting a fund to promote a regular supply of 
fully trained women doctors for India. This fund 
was inaugurated by the Marchioness of Dufferin, and 
is known by her name, and it has since been under 
the special protection of each successive Governor- 
General's wife. 

During the later years of her reign, Her Majesty 
has suffered many bereavements of those near and 
dear to her. Her uncle, who had been a second father 
to her, King Leopold, died in 1865. He had remained 
very faithful to his love for England and English con- 
stitutionalism. Many small indications show how 
his heart clung to the memories of his first marriage. 



WARP AND WOOF OF HOME AND POLITICS. 237 

The eldest daughter of the second marriage was named 
Charlotte, after his first wife (she afterwards married 
the unfortunate Archduke Maximilian, who assumed 
the title of Emperor of Mexico, and was shot by 
Juarez in 1867). When King Leopold knew he was 
dying, he desired that he might be buried at Windsor, 
by the side of the wife of his youth ; but his wishes 
were not carried out. 

The outbreak of diphtheria at Darmstadt in 1878, 
in which the Queen lost her dearly loved second 
daughter and one of her grandchildren, has been 
already referred to. In June, 1879, the Prince Impe- 
rial, only son of the exiled Empress of the French, 
was killed by the Zulus in a skirmishing expedition 
in South Africa. The Queen's feelings of grief were 
all the harder to endure because the young Prince 
had been serving with her army. Her sensibility on 
the point of national honor was deeply wounded. She 
was ashamed that the lad had not been defended by 
the Englishmen who were with him; her heart bled 
for the mother who had lost her only child. The 
same autumn, with her usual thoughtful kindness, 
she induced the widowed Empress Eugenie to accept 
the loan of Abergeldie Castle, near Balmoral ; and 
nothing was spared which it was possible to do to 
console and cheer her aching heart. 

The next great sorrow was the death of Prince 
Leopold, Duke of Albany, which took place, almost 
suddenly, at Cannes, in March, 1884. The Prince 
had been delicate from his youth, aad more than once 
had hovered between life and death. The Princess 
Alice wrote after one of his illnesses in 1868 : — 

" For a second and even a third time that life has been given again, 
when all feared that it must leave us. . . . Indeed, from the depth of 
my heart, I thank God with you for having so mercifully spared dear 
Leo, and watched over him when death seemed so near." 



238 VICTORIA. 

The Prince had seemed to gain strength with years, 
and in 1882 he married Princess Helen of Waldeck, 
sister of the present Queen-Regent of Holland. A 
little girl was born to him and his wife in 1883, 
named Alice, after the sister whose words of love 
have just been quoted ; but a little son, born in 1884, 
did not see the light for some four months after his 
father's death. The Queen's loving, motherly tender- 
ness protected and sustained her young daughter-in- 
law in her sorrow and loneliness. 

Almost as much as for the death of her children, 
the Queen mourned the loss of the gallant General 
Gordon at Khartoum early in 1885. She wrote from 
Osborne to Miss Gordon in February of that year : — 

Dear Miss Gordon, — How shall I write to you, or how shall I 
attempt to express what 1 feel ! To think of your dear, noble, heroic 
brother, who served his country and his Queen so truly, so heroically, 
with a self-sacrifice so edifying to the world, not having been rescued. 
That the promises of support were not fulfilled — which I so frequently 
and constantly pressed on those who asked him to go — is to me grief 
inexpressible ! indeed, it has made me ill ! My heart bleeds for you, his 
sister. . . . Some day I hope to see you again, to tell you all I cannot 
express. . . . Would you express to your other sisters and your elder 
brother my true sympathy, and what I do so keenly feel, the stain left 
upon England for your dear brother's cruel, though heroic fate ! Ever, 
dear Miss Gordon, yours sincerely and sympathizingly. V. R. I. 

A few weeks later. Miss Gordon presented her 
brother's Bible (which he had constantly carried with 
him) to the Queen, and again Her Majesty wrote a 
letter, vivid with her grief and shame and high appre- 
ciation of the hero whose life had been sacrificed. 
This second letter was left by Miss Gordon to the 
nation, and may now be seen, one of the most inter- 
esting of the collection of royal autographs, in the 
British Museum. The well-worn Bible now lies open 
in an enamel and crystal case, called the St. George's 
Casket, in the south corridor of the private apartments 
at Windsor. 



WARP AND WOOF OF HOME AND POLITICS. 239 

The death of her dearly loved eldest son-in-law in 
1888 was a real heart-sorrow to the Queen. Those 
who saw the Jubilee procession in 1887 retain a vivid 
recollection that among all that splendid retinue there 
was no figure more noble and impressive than that of 
the Prince Imperial of Germany. His tall figure, 
martial bearing, and bronzed, manly face, set off by 
the white uniform he wore, made him conspicuous 
among the crowds of Princes and notabilities. But 
a cruel disease had already laid hold of him, and 
almost exactly a year after his apparently magnificent 
physique had attracted universal admiration in the 
crowds collected for the Jubilee, he was gathered to 
his fathers, and his son, our Queen's eldest grand- 
son, William 11., reigned in his stead. The Emperor 
Frederick reigned for three months only; his aged 
father, the Emperor William L, having died in 
March, 1888. Many noble hopes and ambitions died 
with the Emperor Frederick. He had been one of the 
chief authors of the unity of Germany, and was the 
constant representative in German politics of the prin- 
ciple of constitutional liberty. When he took his 
bride from England, on a bitter winter's day in 1858, 
the little Princess cried bitterly at parting from her 
parents and her native country. Her tears were mis- 
interpreted b}^ the crowd, from whom a shout pro- 
ceeded, "If he doesn't treat you well, come back to 
us." The implied distrust of the Prince was wholly 
uncalled for; he adored his wife, and those two shared 
the burdens and hopes and responsibilities of their 
position in a way that any husband and wife might 
envy. It had been from first to last a marriage of 
true minds. 

The death of the Duke of Clarence, the eldest son 
of the Prince and Princess of Wales, and heir to the 
throne in the second generation, on January 14th, 



24-0 VICTORIA. 

1892, was another heavy blow to the Eoyal House. 
The Duke had only lately become engaged to the 
Princess Victoria Mary of Teck, when all the prepara- 
tions for the wedding were ended by the death of the 
bridegroom-elect. Influenza, followed by acute pneu- 
monia, was the cause. The whole nation mourned 
with and for the Queen. The tragic circumstances of 
the unexpected transition from wedding to funeral, 
from the throne to the bier, called forth a genuine 
expression of deep feeling from all classes. But just 
as a discord sometimes serves to prepare the ear for 
the full sweetness of a harmony, so in this case one 
of the most touching expressions of sympathy was 
called for by the refusal of some boorish members of 
the Miners' Federation at Stoke to pass a vote of con- 
dolence to the Queen on the death of her grandson and 
heir. There were women in the immediate neighbor- 
hood, widows of men who had perished in the Oaks 
Colliery explosion, tAventy-six years earlier. They re- 
tained a lively recollection of the Queen's sympathy 
with them in their bitter grief, and the aid she had 
given to the fund for their relief ; and to think that 
any men connected with coal mining should now 
refuse to express sympathy with the Queen, was 
enough, they felt, to make the very stones cry out. 
Little accustomed as these poor women were to address 
letters to great personages, they sent the following to 
Her Majesty : — ■ 

" To our beloved Queen, Victoria. 
" Dear Lady, — We, the surviving widows and mothers of some of 
the men and boys who lost their lives by the explosion which occurred 
in the Oaks Colliery, near Barnsley, in December, 1866, desire to tell 
your Majesty how stunned we all feel by the cruel and unexpected blow 
which has taken Prince Eddie from his dear grandmother, his loving 
parents, his beloved intended, and an admiring nation. The sad news 
affected us deeply, we all believing that his youthful strength would 
carry him safely through the danger. Dear Lady, we feel more than 
we can express. To tell you that we sincerely condole with your 



WARP AND WOOF OF HOME AND POLITICS. 241 

Majesty and the Prince and Princess of Wales in your and their sad 
bereavement and great distress is not to tell you all we feel ; but the 
widow of Albert the Good and the parents of Prince Eddie wiU under- 
stand what we feel when we say that we feel all that widows and mothers 
feel who have lost those who were as dear as life to them. Dear Lady, 
we remember with gratitude all that you did for us Oaks widows in the 
time of our great trouble, and we cannot forget you in yours. We have 
not forgotten that it was you, dear Queen, who set the example, so 
promptly followed by all feeling people, of forming a fund for the relief 
of our distress, — a fund which kept us out of the workhouse at the 
time, and has kept us out ever since. Dear Lady, we cannot make you 
understand how grieved we all are to learn that a miner, and that miner 
a Barnsley miner, though, happily, not a native of Barnsley, should have 
forgotten not only all that you have done for the widows and orphans 
of miners, but also for the suffering, the afflicted and desolate of every 
other class of workers in England, and that he should have shown him- 
self so devoid of all human feeling as to refuse, and lead others to refuse, 
your Majesty and poor Eddie's parents one kind word of sympathy in 
your and their great sorrow. We feel ashamed of that man, for he has 
covered us all with disgrace, and filled our hearts with pain. We hope 
he may live to feel ashamed of himself, and to know what it is to be 
refused any sympathy in any great trouble he may have. We wish it 
were in our power, dear Lady, to dry up your tears and comfort you, 
but that we cannot do. But what we can do, and will do, is to pray 
God, in His mercy and goodness, to comfort and strengthen you in this 
your time of great trouble. Wishing your Majesty, the Prince and 
Princess of Wales, and the Princess May, so cruelly bereaved and 
utterly disconsolate, all the strength, consolation, and comfort which 
God alone can give, and which He never fails to give to all who seek 
Him in truth and sincerity, we remain, beloved Queen, your loving and 
grateful though sorrowing subjects. The Oaks Widows." (Signed on 
behalf of the widows by Sarah Bradley, one of them.) 

" Poor Eddie ! to die so young, and so much happiness in prospect. 
Oh! 'tis hard." 

The secretary to the fund, Mr. G. W. Atkinson, of Barnsley, having 
been requested to forward the letter to Her Majesty, accompanied it 
with a note to Her Majesty's private secretary, in which he stated that 
" the poor people seemed greatly troubled at the misfortune which had 
befallen the Royal Family of England." 

The following reply was sent by Her Majesty : — 

"The Queen has been much touched by the genuine feeling of 
sympathy manifested by those connected with the Oaks Colliery 
which is so warmly expressed in the address you have enclosed, 
and Her Majesty commands me to ask you to convey her sincere 
thanks to the senders for their kind words of condolence with her in 
her sorrow."! 

1 Times, January 26th, 1892. 
16 



242 VICTORIA. 

To appreciate all that this touching letter from 
working-women to their Queen means, would he to 
understand the great national work which Her Majesty 
has accomplished by her life. The throne has become 
once more a living power for good in our national 
life mainly through the unceasing devotion to her 
duty, high character, and practical sagacity of its 
present occupant. Compare the warm human feeling 
of genuine affection and sorrow which breathes 
through every line of this letter with Greville's 
description of the funeral of George lY. : "A gayer 
company I never beheld. . . . They were all as merry 
as grigs," and so on. Two more such kings as George 
lY. would have run out the English monarchy. Mr. 
R. L. Stevenson said in one of his stories that the 
first service a patriot ought to render his country was 
to be a good man. Being a good woman underlies all 
our Queen's services to her country, and it is this 
which has established her throne in righteousness. 

Her Majesty was deeply touched by the many expres- 
sions of affectionate sympathy which reached her from 
every class and from her subjects all over the world. 
She replied by a letter to her people setting forth in 
strong and simple words her mingled feelings of grief 
for her loss, gratitude for the sympathy expressed by 
the nation, and her sources of consolation : — 

Osborne, January 26, 1892, 
I must once again give expression to my deep sense of the loyalty 
and affectionate sympathy evinced by my subjects in every part of my 
Empire on an occasion more sad and tragical than any but one which 
has befallen me and mine, as well as the Nation. The overwhelming 
misfortune of my dearly loved Grandson having been thus suddenly cut 
off in the flower of his age, full of promise for the future, amiable and 
gentle, and endearing himself to all, renders it hard for his sorely 
stricken Parents, his dear young Bride, and his fond Grandmother to 
bow in submission to the inscrutable decrees of Providence. 

The sympathy of millions, which has been so touchingly and visibly 
expressed, is deeply gratifying at such a time, and I wish, both in ray 



WARP AND WOOF OF HOME AND POLITICS. 243 

own name and that of my children, to express, from my heart, my warm 
gratitude to all. 

These testimonies of sympathy with us, and appreciation of my 
dear Grandson, whom I loved as a Son, and whose devotion to me was 
as great as that of a Son, will be a help and consolation to me and mine 
in our affliction. 

My bereavements during the last thirty years of my reign have 
indeed been heavy. Though the labors, anxieties, and responsibilities 
inseparable from my position have been great, yet it is my earnest 
prayer that God may continue to give me health and strength to work 
for the good and happiness of my dear Country and Empire while life 
lasts. 

Victoria, R. I. 

The noble and touching words of the last sentence 
fitly recall the child of eleven years old who, on first 
learning that she was next in the succession, lifted 
her little hand and said, "I will be good." 

The Duke of York, Prince George of Wales, occu- 
pies, by the death of his elder brother, the next place 
in the succession after his father. The union, in 
1893, of the young Prince with Princess Victoria Mary 
of Teck (Princess May, as she was generally called) 
resulted in the birth of a son in May, 1894. This 
baby, who bears the fine historic title of Prince 
Edward of York, is now the third in the direct line 
of the succession. Pictures of the four generations, 
the Queen, her son, grandson, and great-grandson, 
have ornamented all the illustrated papers, and have 
been looked at with loyal interest by millions of Eng- 
lish men and women all over the world who have 
mingled with their good wishes to the Royal House 
a heartfelt prayer that it may yet be many a long 
year before the Crown of England passes to another 
head. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

THE QUEEN AND THE EMPIRE. 

Reference was made in the last chapter to the cele- 
bration of the Queen's Jubilee in 1887. It was kept 
with all kinds of appropriate festivals in every part of 
the British Empire. But the centre and kernel of 
the whole celebration was the beautiful and touching 
national ceremony in Westminster Abbey on June 
21st. On the same spot where as a young girl the 
Queen had knelt and had sworn fidelity to the consti- 
tution of her kingdom, and to govern according to law, 
justice, and mercy, the aged ,Queen again appeared, 
followed by a troop of children, grandchildren, and 
great-grandchildren, to return thanks to the Almighty 
for the blessings of her reign and the augmenting 
power, prosperity, and numbers of her people. In 
1837 her people had looked to her with the enthusiasm 
of hope ; in 1887 they looked upon her with the enthu- 
siasm of gratitude, with the memory of fifty wonderful 
years behind them, griefs and joys in common, com- 
mon pride in the greatness and glories of England, 
common shame for her shortcomings ; but in spite of 
these a common faith that earth's best hopes rest with 
England, and that her growing greatness promotes 
the happiness and well-being of mankind. In this 
national festival the Queen was felt to be the emblem 
of national unity, the one political power in the nation 
that is dissociated from party, with its petty squab- 
bles and ignoble sacrifices. While statesmen too often 
stand merely for their party, and may be willing to 
sacrifice the true and obvious interests of the whole 



THE QUEEN AND THE EMPIRE. 245 

nation to gain a party majority, the Queen is more 
and more felt to stand for the nation that is above and 
beyond all party. That was the real meaning of the 
Jubilee, compared to which personal congratulations 
to a lady who had filled an important position with 
credit for fifty years held only a very secondary place. 
It may be claimed for the Queen that she has 
realized, as no other modern Sovereign of this country 
has done, and as only a section of the public dimly 
appreciate, the true value of the Crown as a power 
which is above party, and therefore representative of 
the whole nation. Her function has been to check 
Ministers who have been ready to make national sac- 
rifices to promote party ends ; constantly, for instance, 
to keep before the heads of successive Governments 
the importance of maintaining the efficiency of the 
national defences. How many Prime Ministers and 
Chancellors of the Exchequer may have been tempted 
to procure a surplus, and thus obtain for their party 
the popularity of a remission of taxation, by neglect- 
ing to build ships and keep up our naval supremacy, 
but for the unwearying attention given by the Queen 
to all matters connected with internal and external 
defence. When the records of the later years of this 
reign come to be fully written, innumerable proofs 
will be given to the public that when statesmen have 
from time to time disdained to seize a party triumph 
which would bring with it a national disaster, they 
have either been inspired by the direct counsels of the 
Queen, or have received from her, after the event, 
immediate proof that she has watched their course of 
conduct with sympathy and appreciation. All govern- 
ment, including party government, only exists for the 
welfare of the governed; that is, the whole nation. 
It is quite natural thiat party leaders should often for- 
get this; it is the function of the Crown never to 



246 VICTORIA. 

forget it, and to exert all its influence to prevent 
the interests of the nation being sacrificed for the 
supposed benefit of a section of it. 

The Queen fully realized, and has over and over 
again expressed, in the most definite way, the truth 
that in England the real ultimate power is the will of 
the people. They may decide wrong, but their deci- 
sion is the ultimate authority. Her own private 
opinions on various political questions have no weight 
in opposition to the will of the people. A large 
number of her Ministers have left on record their 
experience of the Queen's complete loyalty to this 
fundamental principle. She will never let her private 
feelings or opinions stand in the way of her duty as a 
constitutional Sovereign. This being so, an impres- 
sion has gained ground in some quarters that a Con- 
stitutional Monarch is only a sort of Chinese mandarin, 
mechanically nodding assent to whatever is proposed 
by the Ministers. This is very far from being true. 
All the executive officers of the Crown are directly 
responsible to the Queen, and she keeps a watchful 
eye over their departments, requiring constant reports, 
and to have proofs of their efficiency submitted to her. 
Then in matters involving conflict between parties, 
she exercises a moderating influence, inducing the 
" outs " to use their position with a due sense of 
responsibility to national interests, and not to think 
that these may be sacrificed for the mere purpose of 
defeating the "ins." In matters involving conflict 
between the Lords and Commons, the present Sov- 
ereign has again and again prevented matters coming 
to a deadlock, reminding the leaders of the House of 
Lords of the fundamental fact that the will of the 
people is the ultimate source of authority, and induc- 
ing the leaders of the House of Commons to act in a 
spirit of statesman-like conciliation and moderation. 



THE QUEEN AND THE EMPIRE. 247 

Two examples will suffice to show how invaluable the 
exercise of these functions may be, and how they serve 
to oil the rather cumbrous machinery of the constitu- 
tion. After the election of 1859, Lord Palmerston 
was again returned to power, but with considerably 
reduced majority compared to that of 1857. The 
Conservatives had fought the election with immense 
vigor. Their leader, the Earl of Derby, had given 
X 20, 000 to the war-chest for the elections. When 
the new Parliament met, Lord Derby's Government 
was only beaten on an amendment to the Address by 
thirteen, so the parties were very nearly balanced. 
The Conservatives had expected to win, and had 
made immense efforts, and were proportionately dis- 
appointed. The slashing vigor of Lord Derby's elo- 
quence had gained for him the title of the Rupert of 
Debate. The expectation was that he would lead 
repeated sallies against the Government; but, con- 
trary to expectation, he was unusually moderate and 
pacific. The reason came out when the last volume 
of the Greville Memoirs was published, in 1887. The 
Queen sent for Lord Derby, when he had left office in 
1859, and entreated him not to use the power he had, 
from the nearly balanced state of parties, to upset 
Lord Palmerston's Government. She urged the great 
objections there were to constant changes, and that 
in the critical state of foreign politics nothing ought 
to be done to weaken the Government. Lord Derby 
entirely concurred, and promised to act in conformity 
with her wishes. Greville says, ''He has entirely 
done so. Nothing could be more temperate and harm- 
less than the few remarks he made on Tuesday night. " 
The circumstance brings out the value of having at 
the head of the State an officer who is neither nomi- 
nated by, nor responsible to, party. It also gives a 
good illustration of the Queen's power of subordinat- 



248 VICTORIA, 

ing her own private inclinations to the national wel- 
fare; because, although her feelings were softened 
towards Lord Palmerston, they were hardly cordial, 
and she strongly dissented from the view which he 
represented with so much vigor on the questions then 
at issue between Italy and Austria. 

An example of the success of the Queen's efforts to 
prevent conflict between the two Houses of Parliament 
is given in full detail in the Life of Archbishop Tait. 
It will be within the recollection of many readers 
that the election of 1868 was fought mainly on the 
question of the Disestablishment of the Church in 
Ireland, and that an enormous majority was returned 
to the House of Commons favorable to its disestablish- 
ment. The House of Lords, by a large majority, 
were in favor of the Establishment. Here, then, was 
a fine field for a battle between the two Houses. The 
new Parliament was opened on February 16th, 1869. 
On that morning the Archbishop of Canterbury re- 
ceived an autograph letter from the Queen, expressing 
her anxiety on the subject of the proposed measure, 
and adding: — 

" The Queen has seen Mr. Gladstone, who shows the most conciliatory 
disposition. He seems to be really moderate in his views, and anxious, 
so far as he can properly and consistently do so, to meet the objections 
of those who would maintain the Irish Church." 

She then pointed out the desirability of a conference 
between Mr. Gladstone and the Archbishop on the 
subject of the forthcoming Disestablishment Bill ; she 
had already paved the way for this in conversation 
with the Prime Minister, and was confident that while 
he would strictly maintain the principle of disestab- 
lishment, there were many matters connected with 
the question v/hich might be open to discussion and 
negotiation. The interview between Mr. Gladstone 
and the Archbishop took place almost immediately. 



THE QUEEN AND THE EMPIRE. 249 

It is hardly necessary to draw attention to the sagac- 
ity which prompted the Queen to bring about this 
meeting before the introduction and publication of the 
Bill, rather than after. It is much easier to prevent 
an irreconcilable hostility by friendly negotiation, 
than to charm it away after it has once sprung into 
existence. Before seeing Mr. Gladstone, the Arch- 
bishop drew up a short memorandum of four points 
which he considered absolutely essential ; after the 
interview he added a note to his MS. to the effect 
that he had not read it to Mr. Gladstone, "As the 
interview took the form of an exposition of his policy 
by Mr. G. " In fact he rehearsed to the Archbishop, 
on February 19th, 1869, the famous speech which he 
made in the House of Commons on March 1st. The 
Archbishop, however, heard with great satisfaction 
that the four essential conditions which he had noted 
down prior to the interview, were practically observed 
by Mr. Gladstone in his proposed measure. He im- 
mediately communicated this to the Queen, and 
expressed his satisfaction upon it, and his desire to 
aid by any means in his power a course of moderation 
and conciliation. The Bill passed through the House 
of Commons practically unaltered; all amendments 
were rejected by immense majorities ; there was, in a 
word, every indication that the Bill was a practical 
expression of the national will. Then came its fate 
in the Lords to be considered; and again the Arch- 
bishop, by the Queen's commands, put himself in 
communication with the Prime Minister on the sub- 
ject, with the view of averting a collision between the 
two Houses. The Archbishop gave his strenuous sup- 
port to the Lords adopting the policy of passing the 
second reading, and amending the Bill in committee. 
The ordinary Conservative majority in the Lords in 
1869 was about sixty ; and the practical question was 



250 VICTORIA. 

how many of the opposition could be induced either to 
abstain from voting or to support the second reading. 
Much, the Archbishop wrote to the Queen, would 
depend on Lord Granville's time in introducing the 
Bill in the Lords. He ventured to suggest that Her 
Majesty should represent this to him. He also wrote 
to Mr. Disraeli, and begged him to influence his 
friends in the House of Lords to allow the Bill to 
pass a second reading, in order to amend it in com- 
mittee. The Archbishop spoke in this sense in the 
debate in the Lords, but abstained from voting; Lord 
Salisbury, among other well-known Conservative 
leaders, voted with the Government in favor of the 
second reading, which was carried by a majority of 
thirty- three. The first danger to the Bill was thus 
safely passed ; but the acute stage of the fight between 
the Lords and Commons occurred over the Lords' 
amendments, which were both numerous and import- 
ant. The Archbishop was again in almost hourly 
communication with the Queen, constantly urged by 
her that a spirit of moderation must be shown on both 
sides, in order to secure a successful issue. Li one 
of his letters to the Queen, while the war on the 
amendments was being waged (July 8th, 1869), the 
Archbishop suggested that, rather than yield on one 
point connected with the endowments, it would be 
better to defeat the Bill and risk another year of agi- 
tation. The Queen immediately replied, deprecating 
this course, and expressing her fear that another year 
of political warfare would result in worse, rather than 
better, terms being forced upon the Church. She 
herself had all along favored the plan of concurrent 
endowment, but the majority in the House of Com- 
mons was strongly against it, and all the amendments 
in this direction introduced by the Lords were disal- 
lowed. Mr. Gladstone spoke with great vehemence in 



THE QUEEN AND THE EMPIRE. 251 

the House of Commons against the whole of the Lords' 
amendments. His unyielding language delighted his 
followers, and there was a corresponding feeling of 
exasperation among his opponents, especially in the 
Lords. But when the first heat caused by his speech 
had subsided, and the actual points of irreconcilable 
difference between the two Houses were calmly con- 
sidered, it was felt that though Mr. Gladstone had 
spoken daggers, he had used none; the Government 
were, as a matter of fact, prepared to give way on the 
clause relating to the disposal of the surplus, to accord 
terms more favorable to the commuting clergy of the 
Disestablished Church, and to concur in the postpone- 
ment of the date of disestablishment. On the other 
hand, they nailed their colors to the mast against con- 
current endowment. This indicates the basis of the 
compromise ultimately arrived at, and without doubt 
it was largely due to the efforts made by the Queen to 
bring it about. The Archbishop wrote in his diary, 
July 25th, 1869: — 

" A messenger from Windsor ■waiting for me with a further letter 
from the Queen about the Irish Church. It is a great blessing that the 
Queen takes such a vivid interest in the welfare of her people, and is 
(e. g.) so earnest to ward off a collision between the two Houses of 
Parliament." 

He then gives a narrative of his personal activity 
in bringing about the compromise, and his negotiations 
with Lords Salisbury, Cairns, Grey, and Carnarvon 
on the one side, and Mr. Gladstone and Lord Gran- 
ville on the other, and adds, " We have made the best 
terms we could, and, thanks to the Queen, a collision 
between the two Houses has been averted." 

Through the publication of the Archbishop's life, a 
detailed account of the Queen's activity in this matter 
has been given to the public ; but in order fully to 
appreciate it, it should be borne in mind that the 



252 VICTORIA. 

circumstances just narrated are only a specimen of 
what is constantly going on of the Queen's unweary- 
ing watchfulness over national interests, so that 
necessary changes take place without unnecessary fric- 
tion and violence. There is a passage in one of the 
Queen's letters to her uncle, published in the "Life 
of the Prince Consort," in which Her Majesty ex- 
presses (in 1852) her weariness of political strife, and 
says, " We women are not made for governing. " As 
this passage meets the eye we can hardly forbear the 
remembrance that St. Paul wrote of himself, no doubt 
sincerely, as the chief of sinners. No Sovereign has 
ever shown more diligence, tact, and courage in the 
fulfilment of Royal duties than the Queen, and there 
can be no doubt, not only of her vast knowledge, but 
also of her intense interest in her work, and of its 
high utility to the nation. 

There has been no space in this little book to dwell 
upon the colonial expansion of England during the 
Queen's reign, nor yet upon the great development of 
man's powers over the forces of nature during the 
same period, making the England of to-day more 
different from the England of 1819 than the England 
of 1819 was from the England of Elizabeth. Neither 
has space allowed even a reference to the wonderful 
social progress that has accompanied this material 
development. Disraeli was perhaps the first among 
statesmen to grasp the fact of what England's Colonial 
and Indian Empire meant, and the new place it gave 
this country in the world. It should not, however, 
be forgotten that the conception of England as a great 
Imperial Power is as much due to the philosopher as 
to the statesman. Sir John Seeley, in the field of his- 
torical research, has contributed to it as much as the 
practical politician. He has pointed out that "the 
main fact of all facts is the expansion not only of 



THE QUEEN AND THE EMPIRE. 253 

the English race, but of the English State all over the 
globe." The English people, it has been said, have 
conquered and peopled half a world in a fit of absence 
of mind ; and it required a Jewish statesman and a 
Cambridge professor to point out to them that there 
was anything noticeable in the achievement. Disraeli 
had not perceived it in 1852. In that year he, as 
Chancellor of the Exchequer, wrote to Lord Malmes- 
bury, as Foreign Secretary, " These wretched colonies 
will all be independent in a few years, and are a 
millstone round our necks. " What a change between 
this remainder biscuit of an effete doctrine of the 
Manchester School, and the Imperial statesman of 
later years ! When his life is written it will be 
interesting to see when and how he developed the 
Imperialism with which his name is now associated. 
His passing of the Bill in 1876 which made the Queen 
Empress of India has been already referred to. The 
Queen valued him as a statesman and as a friend 
more than any Prime Minister since the days of Sir 
Robert Peel and Lord Aberdeen. Whether he derived 
his Imperialism from her, or she hers from him, will 
not be known till the history of both lives can be fully 
revealed. She honored him with her regard and 
friendship, entirely abandoning the distrust and sus- 
picion with which at the outset of his political career 
she had regarded him. In Hughenden Church she 
placed after his death a memorial tablet with the 
following inscription, written by herself : — 

To the dear and honored memory of 

Benjamin, Earl of Beaconsfield, 

This memorial is placed by 

His grateful and affectionate Sovereign and Friend, 

Victoria, R. I. 

"Kings love them that speak right." — Prov. xvi. 13. 

She wrote at the time of Lord Beaconsfield 's death 
to Dean Stanley : — 



254 VICTORIA. 

" The loss of my dear, great friend , . . has completely overwhelmed 
me. His devotion and kindness to me, his wise counsels, his great 
gentleness combined with firmness, his one thought for the honor and 
glory of the country, and his unswerving loyalty to the throne, make 
the death of my dear Lord Beaconsfield a national calamity. My grief 
is great and lasting." 

The Queen's words, "his one thought for the honor 
and glory of the country," are illustrative of what 
Her Majesty most values in her counsellors; they also 
indicate her conception of Royalty as a means of 
representing the nation, and the fusion of party differ- 
ences. With the wider and wider extension of the 
suffrage, the House of Commons stands in danger, by 
its very representative character, of representing only 
the people who vote for it, and these are only a hand- 
ful in the great world of the British Empire. The 
Queen has 378,000,000 subjects; of these only about 
six millions vote for the Members of the House of 
Commons. There is danger of the six millions acting 
with something less than justice to the unrepresented 
372,000,000. The Queen constantly watches against 
this danger, and her well-trained eye quickly detects 
those among the statesmen of both parties who are 
able to grasp the larger conception of the duties of 
government, who are not prepared to destroy the 
Empire to buy a party majority, or who steadily 
decline to buy, for example, thirty seats in Lancashire, 
by the sacrifice of Indian fiscal interests. To such 
men she gives her support and encouragement, and 
she has consequently been, throughout her long reign, 
a steady influence with both parties on the side of 
prefering national to party ends. 

That she has achieved much in this direction is 
undoubted, and it is also undoubted that she has 
achieved it mainly by the absolute sincerity of her 
own character, and by its spontaneous power of dis- 
tinguishing between the false and the true, the noble 



THE QUEEN AND THE EMPIRE. 255 

and the ignoble. With all the temptations of her 
position, the possession of almost unlimited power 
from girlhood, she has chosen to live simply and to 
live laboriously ; with everything before her that 
wealth could offer in the way of pleasure, she has 
never found her amusements in pursuits that bring to 
others sorrow and misery. She has ever been the 
true woman, and because a true woman therefore a 
great Queen. 

In the earlier chapters of this little book an attempt 
was made to indicate the formative influences on the 
Queen's character, and a chief place was given, in 
this connection, to Baron Stockmar and to the Prince 
Consort. The bed-rock of the character of all three 
is the value they put on Love and Duty. Stockmar, 
towards the close of his life, wrote : — 

" Were I now to be asked by any young man just entering into life, 
* What is the chief good for which it behooves a man to strive ? ' my only 
answer would be, ' Love and Friendship ! ' Were he to ask me, ' What 
is a man's most priceless possession? ' I must answer, * The conscious- 
ness of having loved and sought the truth, of having yearned for the 
truth for its own sake ! ' All else is either vanity or a sick man's dream." 

With a similar unconscious self-revelation, the 
Prince Consort wrote to his eldest daughter, almost 
immediately after her marriage, counselling her not 
to think of herself, but to think of duty and service. 
" If," he said, " you have succeeded in winning people's 
hearts by friendliness, simplicity, and courtesy, the 
secret lay in this, that you were not thinking of your- 
self. Hold fast this mystic power; it is a spark from 
heaven." The Queen's nature was full of responsive 
sympathy with these "spirits finely touched to fine 
issues." In her correspondence she too gives her 
conception of the secret of happiness. Character- 
istically enough, she finds her illustration in the 
person of her husband, and says how people are 



256 VICTORIA. 

struck, not only by his great power and energy, but 
also by his great self-denial, and constant wish to 
work for others. And *'this," adds the Queen, "is 
the happiest life. Pining for what one cannot have, 
and trying to run after what is pleasantest, invariably 
end in disappointment." 

This is the spirit which has enabled Her Majesty to 
fill her great position so worthily, and to have been, 
therefore, of untold service to the country she has 
loved so well. 



CHEONOLOGICAL TABLE OF EVENTS. 



1819. Birth of Princess Victoria at Kensington Palace, May 24th, 

1820. Death of Duke of Kent. — Death of George III. — Accession of 

George IV. — Trial of Queen Caroline begun in House of 
Lords in October ; abandoned in November. 
1822. Suicide of Lord Londonderry (Castlereagh). — Canning becomes 
Foreign Secretary. 

1826. General Election. — Lord Liverpool Prime Minister. 

1827. Death of Lord Liverpool. — Canning becomes Prime Minister, 

and dies in August of same year. — Lord Goderich succeeds 
him. 

1828. Duke of Wellington Prime Minister 

1829. Catholic Emancipation. 

1830. Death of George IV. — Accession of William IV. — Regency 

Bill passed. — Revolution in Paris. — Charles X. deposed. — 
Louis Philippe, King of the French. — General Election. — 
Whig majority. — Earl Grey Prime Minister. 

1831. Prince Leopold (widower of Princess Charlotte) becomes King 

of the Belgians. — First Reform Bill defeated — Dissolution. 
— Large majority •irfc» favor of Beform, and Bill immediately 
reintroduced. 

1832. Reform Bill carried. 

1833. Abolition of -Slavery in British Dominions; £20,000,000 voted 

to compensate West Indian slave-owners. 

1834. New Poor Law passed. 

1835. The Orange Plot. — Lord Melbourne Prime Minister. 

1836. First meeting between Princess Victoria and Prince Albert of 

Coburg. 

1837. Death of William IV. — Accession of Queen Victoria, June 

20th. — Insurrection in Canada. 

1838. Coronation. 

1839. Sir Robert Peel's unsuccessful attempt to form a Ministry. — 

Bedchamber question. — Queen's betrothal to Prince Albert. 

1840. Queen's marriage. — Oxford's attempt on her life. — Birth of 

Princess Royal. 

1841. General Election. — Tory majority. — Sir R. Peel Prime Minis- 

ter. — Birth of Prince of Wales. 

1842. Afghan War. — Queen's first visit to Scotland. — Second and 

third attempts on her life. 
17 



258 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OB EVENTS. 

1843. Birth of Princess Alice. — Queen's risit to Louis Philippe at 

Chateau d'Eu. 

1844. Visit of the Czar Nicholas to the Queen at "Windsor. — Birth 

of Prince Alfred. — Louis Philippe's visit to Windsor. 

1845. The Queen's first visit to Germany. — Peel resigns, but is re- 

called. — Purchase of Osborne. 

1 846. Birth of Princess Helena. — Spanish marriages. — Irish Famine. 

— Repeal of the Corn Laws. — Fall of Peel's Government. — 
Lord John Russell becomes Prime Minister, and Lord Palmer- 
ston Foreign Secretary. — Lord George Bentinck the leader 
of Protectionist party. 

1847. Irish famine. — General Election. — Whig majority. 

1848. Revolution in Paris. — Fall of Louis Philippe, who takes refuge 

in England. — Chartist movement in England. — Irish Rebel- 
lion. — Birth of Princess Louise. ^- Purchase of Balmoral. 

1849. The Queen's first visit to Ireland. — Enthusiastic reception. — 

1850. Birth of Prince Arthur. — Death of Sir Robert Peel. 

1851. Opening of Great Exhibition. — Coup d'Etat in Paris — Dis- 

missal of Lord Palmerston. 

1852. Fall of John Russell's Ministry. — Earl of Derby forms Govern- 

ment, which lasts ten months. — General Election. — Earl of 
Aberdeen, Prime Minister. — Death of Duke of Wellington. — 
Recognition of Louis Napoleon as Emperor of the French. 

1853. Birth of Prince Leopold. — Second visit to Ireland. — Outbreak 

of unpopularity against Prince Albert. — Marriage of Louis 
Napoleon. 

1854. Alliance with Louis Napoleon. — Crimean War. 

1855. Fall of Lord Aberdeen's Government. — Lord Palmerston Prime 

Minister. — Death of the Czar. — Visits exchanged between 
English and French Courts. — Fall of Sebastopol. — Betrothal 
of Princess Royal to Prince Frederick William of Prussia. — 
Visit of Victor Emmanuel to Windsor. 

1856. Death of Queen's half-brother. — Birth of Prince Imperial. 

1857. Birth of Princess Beatrice. — Title of Prince Consort conferred 

on Prince Albert. — Indian Mutiny. — General Election. — 
Palmerston triumphant. 

1858. Marriage of Princess Royal. — State visit of Queen to Cher- 

bourg. — Visit to Germany to Princess Royal. — Orsini's 
attempt to assassinate French Emperor. — Fall of Lord 
Palmerston's Government on Conspiracy Bill. — Earl of 
Derby's Second Administration, lasting sixteen montlis. 

1859. Birth of Queen's first grandchild, now Emperor William II. 

of Germany. — Volunteer Movement. — General Election. — 
Lord Palmerston again Prime Minister. — War between France 
and Austria on Italian Question. 

1860. Betrothal of Princess Alice to Prince Louis of Hesse. — Tri- 

umphal Entry of Garibaldi into Naples. — Abdication of King 
of Naples. 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF EVENTS. 259 

1861. Death of Duchess of Kent. — Visit of the Queen to Coburg. — 

Third visit of Queen to Ireland. — Victor Emmanuel pro- 
claimed King of United Italy. — Death of the Prince Consort. 

— American Civil War. — The Trent Incident. 

1862. Marriage of Princess Alice. — Crown of Greece offered to Prince 

Alfred. 

1863. Marriage of Prince of Wales to Princess Alexandra of Denmark. 

— Grandchild born (Princess Alice's child) at Windsor. — 
Unveiling of Prince Consort's statue in Aberdeen. 

1864. Birth of a son to the Prince and Princess of Wales, heir to the 

throne in the second generation. — Schleswig Holstein. — War 
between Denmark and Germany. 

1865. — Death of King Leopold of Belgium. — Death of Lord Palmer- 

ston. — General Election. — Lord John Russell Prime Minister. 

1866. Queen opens Parliament in person for first time since her widow- 

hood. — Marriage of Princess Helena to Prince Christian of 
Schleswig-Holstein. — Fall of Lord Russell's Government. — 
Earl of Derby succeeds him. — War between North and South 
Germany. 

1867. Publication of *' Early Years of the Prince Consort." — Opening 

of Albert Hall.— The Passing of Mr. Disraeli's Reform Bill, 
giving Household Suffrage in towns. 

1868. Mr. Disraeli Prime Minister. — General Election. — Liberal 

Majority. — Mr. Gladstone becomes Prime Minister. — At- 
tempted Assassination of Duke of Edinburgh. 

1869. Disestablishment of Irish Church. 

1 870. Eranco-German War. — Fall of Louis Napoleon. — English Edu- 

cation Act. 

1871. German Unity accomplished. — King William of Prussia de- 

clared German Emperor at Versailles. — Illness and recovery 
of the Prince of Wales. — Marriage of Princess Louise to 
Marquis of Lome. 

1872. Thanksgiving Service for recovery of the Prince of Walee. — 

Death of the Queen's half-sister, Princess Feodore of Hohenlohe. 

1873. Fatal accident to Princess Alice's little boy. 

1874. Marriage of Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, to the Grand 

Duchess Marie of Russia. — General Election. — First Con- 
servative Majority since 1841. — Lord Beaconsfield (Disraeli) 
Prime Minister. 

1876. Royal Titles Bill passed. — Bulgarian atrocities. — Servia and 

Montenegro declare war against Turkey. 

1877. Russia declares war against Turkey. 

1878. Death of Princess Alice. — Marriage of the Queen*s eldest grand- 

daughter, Princess Charlotte of Prussia. — Treaty of Berlin.— 
Death of Lord Russell. 

1879. Marriage of Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught, to Princess 

Louise of Prussia. — Birth of the Queen's first great-grand- 
child. — Death of the Prince Imperial in South Africa. 



260 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF EVENTS. 

1880. — General Election. — Large Liberal majority. — Mr. Gladstone 

Prime Minister. 

1 881 . War in Egypt. — Tel-el-Kebir. 

1882. Marriage of Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany, to Princess Helen 

of Waldeck. — The Queen fired at by a Lunatic. 

1884. Death of Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany. — Birth of his posthu- 

mous son. — Passing of Mr. Gladstone's Reform Bill giving 
Household Suffrage in Counties. 

1885. Marriage of Princess Beatrice to Prince Henry of Battenberg. — 

Death of General Gordon at Khartoum. — Fall of Mr. Glad- 
stone's Ministry. — Marquis of Salisbury Prime Minister. — 
General Election. — Parties very nearly balanced. — Mr. 
Gladstone declares himself in favor of Home Rule. 

1886. Lord Salisbury's Government defeated. — Mr. Gladstone forms 

Government and introduces First Home Rule Bill, defeated 
in the House of Commons, June. — General Election, July. — 
Large Unionist Majority. — Lord Salisbury Prime Minister. 

1887. The Jubilee. 

1888. Death of German Emperor, William I., March. — Accession of 

the Queen's son-in-law, the Emperor Frederick. — His death, 
June 15th. 

1892. Death of the Queen's heir in the second generation, the Duke 

of Clarence. — Death of her son-in-law, Prince Louis of Hesse. 
— General Election. — Liberal majority. — Mr, Gladstone 
Prime Minister. 

1893. Betrothal and marriage of Duke of York to Princess Victoria 

Mary of Teck. — Second Home Rule Bill defeated in the 
House of Lords. 

1894. Birth of Prince Edward of York. — Death of the Czar, Alexan- 

der II. — Accession of the young Czar, Nicholas II. — His 
marriage to the Queen's granddaughter. Princess Alix of 
Hesse. — Mr. Gladstone retires, and is succeeded in the 
Premiership by the Earl of Rosebery. 



BOOKS OF REFERENCE. 261 



BOOKS OF EEFEEENCE. 



Early Years of the Prince Consort. 

Life of the Prince Consort. 

Memoir of Princess Alice. 

Leaves from a Journal of our Life in the Highlands. 

More Leaves. 

Earl of Malmesbury's Autobiography. 

The Greville Memoirs. 

History of Our Own Times. By Mr. J. McCarthy, M. P. 

Life and Letters of Dean Stanley. 

Life of Archbishop Tait. 

Lady Bloomfield's Reminiscences. 

Diary of a Lady of Quality. 

Miss Martineau's Thirty Years' Peace. 

Two Noble Lives. 

Life of the Earl of Shaftesbury. 

Life of Bishop Wilberforce. 

Life of Viscount Palmerston. By Hon. Evelyn Ashley. 

Life of Baron Stockmar. 



INDEX. 



Aberdeen, Earl of, 85, 145, 175, 182. 

Aberdeen, unveiling of Prince Con- 
sort's statue at, 221. 

Addresses of the French colonels, 
1858, 198. 

Adelaide, Princess, of Hohenlohe, 
asked in marriage by Napoleon 
III., 168. 

Adelaide, Queen, 12, 13, 27, 28. 

Albany, Duke of. See Leopold. 

Albert, Prince, birth of, 14; childhood 
of, 25, 65 ; education of, 65 ; first visit 
to England of, 62; character of, 64, 
81, 86, 89, 255; projected marriage, 
25, 65; tour in Italy, 65; second 
visit to England, betrothal to the 
Queen, 66, 70; rumored to be a 
Roman Catholic, 71 ; allowance 
cut down in House of Commons, 
74 ; precedence disallowed in House 
of Lords, 75, 76; marriage of, 79; 
favorable impression produced by, 
80, 90, 91; difficulties of position of, 
80; growing political influence of, 
85; Queen's devotion to, 67, 69, 85; 
political opinions of, 86, 178; reli- 
gious views of, 87; accomplishments 
and tastes of, 91, 92; McLeod, Dr., 
on, 89; Stockmar's influence on, 
112, 118; title of Prince Consort 
conferred on, 115 ; devotion of, to 
his children and home, 120, 14:3; on 
the strength of Constitutionalism, 
153; consults Lord Shaftesburj', 154; 
and Lord Palmerston, 156, 171, 209; 
outbreak of unpopularity against, 
157, 182, 183 ; and the Great Exhi- 
bition, 173; on betrothal of his eldest 
daughter, 188 ; at Cherbourg, 196-7 ; 
despatch of, on T7-ent afi'air, 208; 
death of, 201-12; unveiling of statue 
of, 221. 

Alexandra, Princess of Wales, 206, 
217, 228, 239. 

Alfred, Prince, Duke of Edinburgh 
and Duke of Coburg, 124, 131, 137, 
232, 233. 

Alice, Princess, Grand Duchess of 
Hesse, 119, 123, 130. 201, 212, 215, 
216, 220, 230, 231, 233, 234, 235. 



Alix, Princess of Hesse Darmstadt, 

136. 
Anti-Corn Law agitation, 58, 99, 101. 
Arthur, Prince, Duke of Connaught, 

127. 
Ashley, Lord. See Shaftesbury. 
Assassination, attempted, of Prince 

Alfred in Australia, 232. 
Attempts on the Queen's life, 89, 90, 

119, 139, 140, 141. 

Balmoral, 135, 136, 137, 138. 

Beatrice, Princess Henry of Batten- 
berg, 127, 128. 

Bedchamber question, 60, 72. 

Belgians, King of the. ^ee Leopold. 

Bloomfield, Lady, 91 «., 142; on be- 
trothal of Prince Frederick William 
and Princess Royal, 187 ; on Prin- 
cess Alice, 233. 

Bright, the Rt. Hon. John, 29, 101, 
177, 207, 222. 

Brocket, Greville at, 95 n. 

Brougham, Lord, 57, 62. 

Brown, Mr. John, 223. 

Bunsen, Baron, letter from Stockmar 
to, 116. 

Bunsen, Baroness, 33. 

Cambridge, marriage of Duke of, 12. 
Cambridge, Princess Marv of, 169, 

234. 
Cambridge, Prince of Wales at, 210. 
Canada, insurrection in, 56. 
Canning, Lady, 97. 127, 135. 
Canning, Lord, in India, 192, 194. 
Carlvle, Mr. Thomas, on the Queen, 

33^ 224-6. 
Caroline, Queen, 19, 23. 
Cart, death of, the Prince's valet, 35. 
Castlereagh, Viscount, 107. 
Catholic Emancipation, 41. 
Charlotte, Princess, 12, 16, 17, 107-110. 
Charlotte, Princess of Prussia, 127. 
Charlotte, Queen, 107. 
Chartism, 58-74 «., 126. 
Cholera, 170. 
Christmas-trees, 120. 
Civil War in the United States, Trent 

affair, 208. , 



264 



INDEX. 



Claremont, 109, 166. 

Clarence, Duke of. See William IV. 

Clarence, Duke of. Prince Albert Vic- 
tor of Wales, 239. 

Clarendon, Earl of, 170, 171, 177. 

Cobden, Richard, 101, 147, 148, 177, 
207. 

Coburg, Duchess of, 13, 25. 

Coburg, death of Duke of, 143. 

Coburg, Duke Alfred of. See Alfred. 

Connaught, Duke of. See Arthur. 

Corn Laws, repeal of, 9S-101. 

Coronation of George IV., 19. 

Coronation of William IV., 16. 

Coronation of Queen Victoria, 39. 

Coronation service, 39, 

Coup d'Hat, 106, 162, 163. 

Crimean War, 157, 169, 170, 171, 175- 
187. 

Cumberland, Ernest, Duke of, 11, 18, 
41, 45, 47, 76, 107, 122, 123. 

Darmstadt, diphtheria at, 237. 

Dav3's, Rev. George. See Peter- 
borough, Bishop of. 

Derby, Earl of, 90, 169, 199, 247. 

Disraeli, the Rt. Hon. B., Earl of 
Beaconsfield, 163, 170, 195, 250, 252. 

Dufferin, Marchioness of, and medical 
women in India, 236. 

Durham, Earl of, 56. 

" Earlv Years of Prince Consort," 63. 
East India Company extinguished, 

193. 
Edinburffh, Duke of. See Alfred. 
Empress Eug(^nie, 184, 197, 237. 
Empress Frederick, 117, 120, 131, 133, 

185, 186, 187,189, 190, 221. 
Eos, the Prince's greyhound, 82. 
Exhibition of 1851, 173. 

Financial Reforms of Sir Robert Peel, 
103. 

Fortifications of south coast, 207. 

France, death of Prince Imperial of, 
237. 

Franco-German War, 232. 

Frederick William I., King of Prussia, 
122, 178. 

Frederick William II., King of Prus- 
sia and Emperor of Germany, 187, 
228, 239. 

Garibaldi, 206. 

General Election, 1837, 51. 

" " 1841, 95. 

" " 1857, 198. 

" " 1859, 247. 

George III., 12. 



George IV., 11, 16, 18. 

German Unity, 86, 105, 107, 117. 178, 
239. 

Gladstone, the Right Hon. W. E 
103, 182, 20T, 248, 249. 

Gordon, death of General, 238. 

Graham, Sir James, Home Secretary 
96. 

Granville, Earl, 164, 169, 218. 

Greville's account of Queen's acces- 
sion, 47 ; description of Queen's an- 
nouncement of her betrothal, 69; on 
Roval Famil}' at Balmoral, 138. 

Grey; Earl, 101. 

Guizot and the Spanish marriages, 
145. 

Hanover, Ernest, King of. See Cum- 
berland. 
Hartley Collier}' explosion, 218. 
Hastings, Lady Flora, 59, 72. 
Haynau, General, 159-161. 
Helen, Princess of Waldeck, Duchess 

of Albany, 238. 
Helena, Princess (Princess Christian 

of Schleswig-Holstein), 125, 230. 
Herbert, the Hon. Sidney, 180. 
Hesse, Prince Louis of, 202, 217, 225, 

228. 
Hesse, Princess Louis of. See Alice, 

Princess. 
Hohenlohe, Princess Adelaide of, 168. 
Hohenlohe, Princess Feodore of, 138, 

139, 218. 
Holland, Lady, 71. 
HoUowav College opened by the 

Queen", 236. 
Hume, Mr. Joseph, 41, 74. 

Imperial, death of Prince, 237. 
India, F^mpress of, 194. 
India, medical women for, 236. 
India, Queen's proclamation after 

Mutiny, 192. 
Indian Mutiny, 187, 193. 
Ireland, Queen's visits to, 124, 125, 205. 
Ii-ish Church Disestablishment Bill, 

248-51. 
Irish famine, 100, 149. 
Italy, Victor Emmanuel, King of, 206. 

Jameson, Mrs., on the Queen, 38. 

Jordan, Mrs., 17. 

Juarez, 237. 

Jubilee, the Queen's, 236, 239, 244. 

Kennington Common, Chartist assem- 
bly on, in 1848, 151. 

Kent, Duchess of, 16, 17, 20, 21, 29. 
35, 37, 79, 123, 200, 201. 



INDEX. 



265 



Kent, Duke of, 12, 15, 16, 107. 
Kossuth in England, 161. 

" Leaves from the Journal of our Life 

in the Highlands," 34, 188. 
Lehzen, Baroness, 30, 37, 61, 111. 
Leiningen, Prince Charles of, 138. 
Leopold, Prince, afterwards King of 

the Belgians, 16, 20, 23, 24, 25, 30, 

54. 63, 106, 108, 109, 110, 166, 202, 

212. 213, 236. 
Leopold, Prince, Duke of Albany, 

24, 128, 206, 212, 236. 
" Life of the Prince Consort," 76. 
Lome, Marquis of, 124, 220. 
Louis Phihppe, 144, 146, 147, 165, 

166. 
Louise, Princess, Marchioness of 

Lome, 125, 153, 220. 
Ljnidhurst, Lord, 57. 
Lyttleton, the Dowager Lady, 124. 

Malmesburv, Earl of, 91, 165, 169, 193, 

229, 253.' 
Marie, Archduchess of Russia, Duchess 

ofCoburg, 136, 232. 
Martineau, Miss Harriet, on Queen's 

early training, 31; on Queen's ac- 
cession, 49. 
McLeod, Dr., 89, 220. 
Medical women in India. 236. 
Melbourne, Viscount, 62, 60, 78, 94, 

95 TO., 99 w., Ill, 121. 
Mendelssohn on the Queen's singing, 

36. 
Mexico, Emperor Maximilian and 

Empress Charlotte, 237. 
Mill, Mr. J. S., 56. 
Mitchel, Mr. John, 150. 
" More Leaves from a Journal of our 

Life in the Highlands," 34, 223. 

Napoleon IH., 162, 166, 167, 168, 184, 

185, 195-8. 
Neale's, Mr., legacy to the Queen, 139. 
Neapolitan insurrection and Lord 

Palmerston, 159. 
Newcastle, Duke of, 183. 
New Poor Law of 1834, 58. 
Nicholas L, Emperor of Russia, 108, 

134, 176, 181. 
Nicholas II., Emperor of Russia, 136. 
Nightingale, Miss Florence, 180. 
Nursery establishment, the Queen's, 

117,119-131. 

Oaks Colliery explosion, letter from 

widows to Queen, 240. 
O'Connell, Daniel, 44, 149. 



Orange plot in 1835, 41. 

Orleans family, the, 126, 166. 

Orsini plot, the, 198. 

Osborne, purchase of, 135 ; gardens of, 

92, 136; Swiss cottage at, 135, 136. 
Oxford's attempt on the Queen's life, 

90, 119. 

Palmerston Administration, defeat of, 
in 1858, 198, 199. 

Palmerston, Viscount, 91, 101, 118, 
146 n., 156-172, 177, 184, 207-209. 

Paris, Queen's visit to, 185. 

Peel, Sir Robert, 45, 58, 61, 74, 83, 85, 
95-103, 134, 142. 

Peterborough, Bishop of, Queen's pre- 
ceptor, 29. 

Portugal, death of King of, 210. 

Precedence of Prince Albert disallowed 
in House of Lords, 77. 

Press attacks on Prince Albert, 183 ; 
on Princess Royal's betrothal, 188. 

Prince Consort. See Albert. 

Prince of Wales. See Wales. 

Princess Royal. See Empress Fred- 
erick. 

Prussia, Frederick William I., King 
of. See Frederick William I. 

Prussia, Prince of. See William I., 
King of, and Emperor of Germany. 

Prussia, Frederick William, King of, 
and Emperor of Germany. See 
Frederick WilHam II. 

Queen. See Victoria. 
Queen's Titles Act, 195. 
Queen's Jubilee, 236, 239, 244. 

Reform Bill, Lord Palmerston's objec- 
tions to, 171. 

Regencv Bill, 1830, 37. 

Regency Bill, 1840, 89. 

Roval Household, reform of, 132-4. 

Russell, Lord John, 42, 61, 62, 101, 
158, 161, 163, 171, 229. 

Russell Administration defeated, 1852, 
169. 

Russell, Lady William. 17L 

Russell, Dr. W. H., 180. 

Schleswig-Holstein War, 228. 

Schleswig-Holstein, Prince Christian 
of, 230. 

Schleswig-Holstein, Princess Christian 
of. See Helena. 

Scotland, disturbances in, in 1848, 151. 

Scotland, Queen's love of, 137, 219, 
223. 

Scott, Sir Walter, reference to Prin- 
cess Victoria, 37. 



266 



INDEX. 



Scottish Church, Queen's reverence 

for, 220. 
Sebastopol, 183, 186. 
Seelev, Sir John, 252. 
Shaftesbury, Earl of, 59, 83, 99, 154, 

155. 
Spanish marriages, the, 145-8, 166. 
Stanley, Dean, 35, 174, 233. 
Stanley, Lady Augusta, 136, 203. 
Stockmar, Baron, 54, 55, 62, 65, 66, 73, 

77, 85, 104-118, 145, 148, 191, 202, 

255. 
Sussex, Duke of, 19, 47, 89, 90. 

Tait, Archbishop of Canterbury, 248. 
Teck, Duchess of. See Cambridge. 
Teck, Princess Victoria Mar}'^ of, 234, 

240. 
Tory Party, outbreak of disloyalty in, 

73. 

United Irishman, The, 150. 
United States, Civil War, Trent affair, 
208. 

Victor Emmanuel, King of Italy, 206. 

Victoria, Queen, birth of, 13; chris- 
tening of, 14; education of, 20, 28, 
34; great affection of, for her uncle 
Leopold, 25; appearance of, 32, 33; 
Carlyle on, 33, 224-6; Baroness 
Bunsen on, 33; care of, for her 
household and servants, 34; as a 
musician, 36 ; Whig sympathies of, 
44, 71 ; accession of, 46 ; considera- 
tion of, for Queen Adelaide, 49, 50; 
on the bedchamber question, 62 ; 
wishes to defer her marriage, 62, 63 ; 
betrothal to Prince Albert, 66 ; an- 
nounces her engagement to the 
Council, 69 ; unpopularity with the 
Tories, 72, 77; marriage of, 79; 
efforts of, to preserve the purity of 
her Court, 83; religious views of, 
88, 130, 131, 219; and Lord Mel- 
bourne, 52, 53, 94; and Sir James 
Graham, 96 ; and Sir Robert Peel, 
61, 72, 94-103; Stockmar's influence 
on, 111-118; attempts on life of, 90, 
119, 139, 140,141 ; birth of children, 
119-128; magnanimitv of, 123; good 
health of, 129, 137; as"'a mother, 129, 



130, 131; legacy to, 139; a good 
sailor, 142, 143 ; first visit to France, 
144; and Viscount Palmerston, 
156-172; on the Haynau incident, 
161; at the opening of the Great 
Exhibition, 173, 175; and Emperor 
Nicholas, 176; disapproves of Day 
of Humiliation for Crimean War, 
178; visits Paris, 185; and Cher- 
bourg, 196, 197; on her daughter's 
marriage, 189; Indian Proclamation, 
193, 194; reviews the Volunteers, 
199, 200; death of mother, 201; 
death of husband, 201-211; unveil- 
ing the Prince's statue at Aberdeen, 
221; children's marriages, 227; pre- 
vents war with Germany, 229; in- 
terest in providing medical women 
for India, 236; letter of, to Mi.^-s 
Gordon, 238 ; letter of, to the nation, 
on death of Duke of Clarence, 242; 
activity of, in preventing disputes 
between the Houses of Parliament, 
246-252; on the secret of happiness, 
255. 

Villiers, the Hon. Charles, 101. 

Volunteer movement, the, 198. 

Wales, Prince of, 117, 121, 185, 187, 
205, 217, 228, 239. 

Wales, Princess of. 206, 215, 228, 239. 

Wellington, Duke of, 18, 41, 42, 45, 57, 
60, 71, 107, 125, 151, 161, 175. 

Whigs, the Queen's sympathies with, 
44, 72. 

Wilberforce, Bishop of Winchester, 
29, 88, 188, 228. 

Willinm I., King of Prussia and Em- 
peror of Germany, 178, 239. 

William II., King of Prussia and Em- 
peror of German V, 205, 228, 239. 

William IV., 12, 16, 17, 18, 20, 22, 23, 
24, 46, 51, 111. 

Windsor, housekeeping at, 134. 

VVynn, Miss, account by, of Queen's 
accession, 47. 

York, Duchess of, 243. 

York, Duke of. Queen's uncle, 17. 

York, Duke of. Prince George of 

Wales 243. 
York, Prince Edward of, 243. 



Messrs. Roberts Brothers^ Publications. 



THE RIGHT HONORABLE 

WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE 

31 ^tttUp from life 
By HENRY "W. LUCY. 

12mo. Cloth. Portrait. Price, $1.25. 



The obvious difficulty of writing within the limits of this volume a sketch of the 
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erect a cottage residence, leaving out nothing essential to the larger plan. I have 
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Precisely who the great god Pan of Mr. Machen's first tale is, we did not quite 
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personate, the evil influences that attach to woman, the fatality of feminine beauty, 
which, like the countenance of the great god Pan, is deadly to all who behold it. 
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she casts her spells, being as good as a Suicide Club, if we may say so, to those who 
love her ; and to whom she is Death. Something like this, if not this exactly, is, we 
take it, the interpretation of Mr. Machen's uncanny parable, which is too obscure 
to justify itself as an imaginative creation and too morbid to be the production of a 
healthy mind. The kind of writing which it illustrates is a bad one, and this is one 
of the worst of the kind. It is not terrible, but horrible. — R. H. S. in Mail and 
Express. 

Sold by all Booksellers. Mailed by Publishers., 

ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston, Mass. 



Messrs. Roberts Brothers' Publications. 

DISCORDS. 

% Volume of Storied* 
By GEORGE EGERTON, author of " Keynotes." 

AMERICAN COPYRIGHT EDITION. 

i6mo. Cloth. Price, $i.oo. 



George Egerton's new volume entitled "Discords," a collection of short stones, 
is more talked about, just now, than any other fiction of the day. The collection is 
really stories for story-writers. They are precisely the quality which literary folk will 
wrangle over. Harold Frederic cables from London to the " New York Times " that 
the book is making a profound impression there. It is published on both sides, the 
Roberts House bringing it out in Boston. George Egerton, like George Eliot and 
George Sand, is a woman's notn de plume. The extraordinary frankness with which 
life in general is discussed in these stories not unnaturally arrests attention. — 
Lilian Wkititig. 

The English woman, known as yet only by the name of George Egerton, who 
made something of a stir in the world by a volume of strong stories called " Keynotes," 
has brought out a new book under the rather uncomfortable title of " Discords." 
These stories show us pessimism run wild ; the gloomy things that can happen to a 
human being are so dwelt upon as to leave the impression that in the author's owi: 
world there is no light. The relations of the sexes are treated of in bitter irony, which 
develops into actual horror as the pages pass. But in all this there is a rugged 
grandeur of style, a keen analysis of motive, and a deepness of pathos that stamp 
George Egerton as one of the greatest women writers of the day. "Discords" has 
been called a volume of stories ; it is a misnomer, for the book contains merely varying 
episodes in lives of men and women, with no plot, no beginning nor ^xi^m%. — Boston 
Traveller. 

This is a new volume of psychological stories from the pen and brains of George 
Egerton, the author of " Keynotes." Evidently the titles of the author's books are 
selected accordmg to musical principles. The first story in the book is "A Psycho- 
logical Moment at Three Periods." It is all strength rather than sentiment. The 
story of the child, of the girl, and of the woman is told, and told by one to whom the 
mysteries of the life of each are familiarly known. In their very truth, as the writer 
has so subtly analyzed her triple characters, they sadden one to think that such things 
must be ; yet as they are real, they are bound to be disclosed by somebody and in due 
time. The author betrays remarkable penetrative skill and perception, and dissects 
the human heart with a power from whose demonstration the sensitive nature maj 
instinctively shrink even while fascinated with the narration and hypnotized by the 
treatment exhibited. — Courier. 



Sold by all Booksellers. Mailed by Publishers^ 

ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston, Mass. 



Messrs. Roberts Brothers* Publications, 



PRINCE ZALESKI. 

BY M. P. SHIEL. 

Keynotes Series, American Copyright Edition* 
i6mo. Cloth, Price, $i.oo. 



The three stories by M. P. Shiel, which have just been published in the 
Keynotes series, make one of the most remarkable books of the time. 
Prince Zaleski, who figures in each, is a striking character, most artistically 
and dramatically presented. "The Race of Orven," the first story, is 
one of great power, and it were hardly possible to tell it more skilfully. 
" The Stone of the Edmundsbury Monks" is in something the same vein, 
mysterious and gruesome. It is in " S. S.," however, that the author most 
fully discloses his marvellous power as a story-teller. We have read noth- 
ing like it since the tales of E. A. Poe; but it is not an imitation of Poe. 
We much doubt if the latter ever wrote a story so strong and thrillingly 
dramatic. — Boston Advertiser. 

The first of the three tales composing this little volume is entitled " The 
Race of Orven," which supplies the character from whom is taken the title of. 
the book. The other two are, " The Stone of the Edmundsbury Monks " 
and " The S. S." There are three maxims on the titlepage, probably one 
for each of the tales, — one from Isaiah, one from Cervantes, and one from 
Sophocles, — but they are a triple key to the spirit of book altogether. The 
Prince, however, rules the contents entirely, pervading them with mysticism 
of every imaginable character. The "S.S." tale is decidedly after the 
manner of Poe, full of mysterious problems in murders and suicides, to be 
treated with ingenious solutions. There is a morbid tendency running 
through the entire trinity, the author seeming to invent characters and com- 
plications only to exhibit his ingenuity in unravelling them, and in string- 
ing on these mgenious theories the spiritual conceptions in which he is wont 
to indulge his thought. But the thought is both magnetic and bold, and 
rarely illusive. Hermitages, recluses, silences and funereal glooms, and the 
entire family of grotesque thoughts and things, are not merely wrought into 
the writer's canvas, but are his very staple, the warp and woof composing 
it. It is an across-the-seas collection of conceits, skilfully strung on one 
glittering thread by a matured thinker. The attempt is made to carve out 
the mystery of things from the heart of the outward existence. The men and 
women on whom the scalpel is made to work are real flesh-and-blood en- 
tities, of such strong points of character as to be actually necessary in 
developing the author's thought as much as his purpose. The book be- 
longs to the increasing class that has come in with the introversive habit of 
modem thought and speculation— call it spiritual or something else. — 
Boston Co7irier. 



Sold by all Booksellers. Mailed, postpaid, on receipt of price, by 
the Publishers, 

ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston, Mass. 



Messrs. Roberts Brothers^ Publications. 

THE WOMAN WHO DID. 

BY GRANT ALLEN. 

Keynotes Series, American Copyright Edition^ 
16mo. ClottL. Price, $1.00. 



A very remarkable story, which in a coarser hand than its refined and 
gifted author could never have been effectively told ; for such a hand could 
not have sustained the purity of motive, nor have portrayed the noble, 
irreproachable character of Herminia Barton. — Boston Home Journal. 

" The Woman Who Did " is a remarkable and powerful story. It 
increases our respect for Mr. Allen's ability, nor do we feel inclined to join 
in throwing stones at him as a perverter of our morals and our social insti- 
tutions. However widely we may differ from Mr. Allen's views on many 
important questions, we are bound to recognize his sincerity, and to re- 
spect him accordingly. It is powerful and painful, but it is not convincing. 
Herminia Barton is a woman whose nobleness both of mind and of life we 
willingly concede ; but as she is presented to us by Mr. Allen, there is un- 
mistakably a flaw in her intellect. This in itself does not detract from 
the reality of the picture. — T/ie Speaker. 

In the work itself, every page, and in fact every line, contains outbursts 
of intellectual passion that places this author among the giants of the 
nineteenth century. — American Newsman. 

Interesting, and at times intense and powerful. — Buffalo Commercial. 

No one can doubt the sincerity of the author. — Woman's Journal. 

The story is a strong one, very strong, and teaches a lesson that no one 
has a right to step aside from the moral path laid out by religion, the law, 
and society. — Boston Times. 



Sold by all Booksellers. Mailed, postpaid, on receipt of price, by 
the Publishers, 

ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston, Mass. 



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